Montana asbestos clinic seeks to reverse court finding that it submitted hundreds of false claims

Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A health clinic in a Montana town plagued by deadly asbestos contamination has asked an appeals court to reverse a lower court determination that it submitted hundreds of false claims. Asbestos-tainted vermiculite mined from a nearby mountain was shipped through Libby, Montana, by rail over decades, sickening or killing thousands of people. A jury last year said 337 cases from the Center for Asbestos Related Disease were based on false claims that made patients eligible for Medicare and other benefits. But an attorney for the clinic said in court arguments on Wednesday that the clinic followed the law. BNSF Railway, which brought the case, separately faces lawsuits over its own role in Libby’s contamination.