H. B. 2352
(By Delegate Williams)
[Introduced January 16, 2003; referred to the
Committee on Health and Human Resources then the Judiciary.]
A BILL to amend article eleven-a, chapter four of the code of West
Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, by
adding thereto a new section, designated section four-a,
relating to providing that medical monitoring may not be
awarded against participants in the tobacco master settlement
agreement and preserving traditional actions for actual
injury.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That article eleven-a, chapter four of the code of West
Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be
amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section four-a,
to read as follows:
ARTICLE 11A. LEGISLATIVE APPROPRIATION OF TOBACCO SETTLEMENT
FUNDS.
§4-11A-4a. Tobacco settlement trust fund protection.
(a) In order to protect the trust funds established in
subsection (b) of section two and subsection (a) of section three
of this article, a court may not allow or consider a cause of
action for medical monitoring or order relief in the form of
medical monitoring in any civil action against a party who is a
signatory or a successor to a signatory to the master settlement
agreement. As used in this section, "medical monitoring" includes
medical examinations, diagnostic tests or other medical procedures,
or a series of tests or procedures, performed for the purpose of
detecting the presence of a particular disease or injury.
(b) The preceding subsection is not intended to preclude the
recovery of medical treatment costs as damages in a personal injury
suit by a plaintiff who establishes an actual physical injury, to
the extent such costs are an allowable item of damages under
existing law.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to protect the state's
stream of revenue from tobacco companies under the master
settlement agreement and related settlement agreements by
prohibiting medical monitoring claims against signatories of the
agreement.
§4-11A-4a is new; therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring
have been omitted.