CHARLESTON, W.Va. (Reuters) - A closely watched asbestos trial was due to get under way in West Virginia on Tuesday, but with far fewer corporate defendants than first expected, attorneys said.þþLawyers for 8,000 people who sued some of the world's largest corporations after being exposed to the deadly agent told Kanawha County Circuit Court on Monday that an initial roster of 259 defendants had been whittled down to fewer than a dozen companies by a last-minute wave of settlements.þþ``Just a handful, fewer than a dozen remain,'' said Paul Hulsey, a plaintiffs' lawyer from South Carolina.þþLegal sources said the final number could turn out to be less than a half-dozen by Tuesday, when jury selection was due to begin.þþHoneywell International Ltd. said on Monday that it had settled all of the remaining claims that had been pending against it in West Virginia.þþTerms of those settlements were not disclosed.þþSome of the biggest defendants were still expected to battle it out in court. ``The larger corporations, like ExxonMobil, have decided to fight this lawsuit rather than settle,'' Hulsey said.þþDefendants had ranged from manufacturers to groups of employers and building owners. The cases appeared to be so numerous that court officials planned to split the massive trial into two courtrooms -- one for companies sued over product liability claims and the other for those sued for on-premises exposure.þþBut Circuit Judges Booker Stevens and Arthur Recht decided on Monday to collapse the proceedings into a single courtroom after learning that Dow Chemical Co.'s unit Union Carbide was the only premises defendant left.þþElliot Hicks, a Charleston lawyer representing the companies, said the defense would spend Monday night retooling their legal strategy.þþ``We have to regroup now,'' he said after a series of hearings on Monday. ``We've asked for extra time and to sever the premises defendants from the case. But the judges have ruled preliminarily to deny the motions.''þþThree defendants had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to delay the start of the trial until it could hear their appeal of a West Virginia court ruling that had consolidated thousands of individual cases into a single trial proceeding.þþLast week, U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist rejected those requests. But the Supreme Court, currently in recess, was expected to consider the defendants' appeal just before the start of its new term on Oct. 7. þþþ
Source: NY Times
