a new precedent for asbestosis claims. The case, in which widow Della Sabin attempted to claim compensation following her husband's death from asbestosis, hinged on the issue of how many asbestos fibers must be present in the lungs for a claim to be valid. A research team based at Llandough Hospital initially reported that the minimum amount of fibers that needed to be present for a claim to be valid was 20 million (only 7 million were found in the sample taken from Mrs Sabin's husband Leslie). However, a subsequent US study suggested that, due to the fact that Leslie had lived for more than forty years after his exposure, a large number of fibers would have cleared from his body naturally; had he died twenty years earlier the asbestos count in his lungs would have been about 35 million fibers per gram. The judge preferred this evidence, and ruled in favor of Mrs Sabin. United States Civil lawsuits Litigation related to asbestos injuries and property damages has been claimed to be the longest-running mass tort in U.S. history, involving more than 8,000 defendants and 700,000 claimants. Since asbestos-related disease has been identified by the medical profession in the late 1920s, workers' compensation cases were filed and resolved in secrecy, with a flood of litigation starting in the United States in the 1970s, and culminating in the 1980s and 1990s. Current trends indicate that the rate at which people are diagnosed with asbsestos-related disease will likely increase through the next decade. Analysts have estimated that the total costs of asbestos litigation in the USA alone will eventually reach $200 to $275 billion. The amounts and method of allocating compensation have been the source of many court cases, and government attempts at resolution of existing and future cases. A multi-district litigation (MDL) complex filing has remained pending in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for over 20 years. As many of the scarring-related injury cases have been resolved, asbestos litigation continues to be hard-fought among the litigants, mainly in individually brought cases for terminal cases of asbestosis, mesothelioma, and other cancers. In June 1982, a retired boilermaker, James Cavett, won an award of $2.3 million compensatory and $1.5 million in punitive damages against Johns-Manville. The Manville Corporation, formerly the Johns-Manville Corporation, filed for reorganization and protection under the United States Bankruptcy Code in August 1982. At the time, it was the largest