Senate Bill No. 597
(By Senators Sprouse, Yoder, Barnes, Facemyer,
Minear, Guills, Weeks and Lanham)
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[Introduced March 18, 2005; referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by
adding thereto a new section, designated §55-7-23, relating to
precluding causes of action for medical monitoring.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended
by adding thereto a new section, designated §55-7-23, to read as
follows:
ARTICLE 7. ACTIONS FOR INJURIES.
§55-7-23. Preclusion of medical monitoring cause of action.
There shall be no cause of action, or liability for,
diagnostic medical examinations or medical monitoring tests or
procedures for the detection of disease for individuals exposed to
an alleged hazardous or toxic substance. To the extent that common
law provides for the recovery of medical monitoring for those
persons exposed to a substance which has increased such person's
risk of contracting a disease, that cause of action, and liability
for, is hereby abolished:
Provided, That this section does not apply to actions filed on or before the first day of July, two
thousand five.
NOTE:
The purpose of this bill is to
preclude causes of action
for medical monitoring.
This section is new; therefore, strike-throughs and
underscoring have been omitted.