A federal judge has tripled the damage award in a case in which a radiologist was found to have conspired to fabricate asbestos claims in West Virginia, according to an article in the West Virginia Record.
On September 25, U.S. District Judge Frederick Stamp of the Northern District of West Virginia granted a motion to triple a nearly $430,000 jury award against former law partners Robert Peirce and Louis Raimond and radiologist Dr. Ray Harron, the Record reported. The resulting damage amount is $1.3 million.
The December 2012 jury verdict found Peirce, Raimond, and Harron guilty of racketeering, conspiracy, and fraud in submitting duplicate and fraudulent claims for silica asbestos exposure against CSX Transportation. Harron allegedly admitted that "he did not even make the diagnoses of the patients whose x-rays he read," according to the newspaper.
CSX filed its original complaint in 2005, claiming that Peirce's firm hid nine fraudulent claims among other lawsuits filed by the law firm in West Virginia, the article noted.
