Litigation Still Gushing In Texas' 'Tort City'

icOendicne of the first, and some believe still the most favored, venues for asbestos litigation in Texas is Beaumont, the county seat of Jefferson County and the site of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas' Beaumont Division.

photo-23The favored forum label is not entirely unwarranted. Beaumont was long ago dubbed 'Tort City' by The Wall Street Journal partly because of the sizable verdicts awarded by juries in state and federal courts located there and partly because of Texas' open forum policy, which has since been changed.

The open forum policy allowed plaintiffs to file …