Five boxes of documents in lawsuits alleging silicosis damages have arrived in the Warren County Circuit Clerk’s Office, about 10 times the volume normally filed in all cases in a month’s time.

The boxes contain about 7,000 pages of paperwork in two peoples’ cases against corporations they allege are responsible for illness or injury caused by silica dust used for sandblasting.

The two plaintiffs were among 19 whose names were on the original complaint, which was filed Jan. 23, 2002, in Copiah County, Circuit Clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree said.

The transfers were ordered by Judge Lamar Pickard of the circuit-court district that includes Copiah, Claiborne and Jefferson counties.

Rule changes by the Mississippi Supreme Court on the grouping of plaintiffs in such mass-tort cases and where they may be filed have led to increased transfers since about the middle of last year, Ashley-Palmertree said.

&#8220We’ve got some we’re having to transfer out,” Ashley-Palmertree said.

The five boxes arrived Wednesday from the Copiah County seat, Hazlehurst, Ashley-Palmertree said. Staff will assign numbers to the cases, record them on the docket and scan the documents’ images for access using the courthouse computer network.

The transfers represent the most paperwork received by the circuit clerk’s office here in at least eight years, Ashley-Palmertree said. Files in about 73 cases against current or former manufacturers of building materials containing asbestos were transferred here from Claiborne County in June but together they did not contain as much paperwork as the boxes that arrived Wednesday, Ashley-Palmertree added.

The state Supreme Court issued in February 2004 a landmark ruling affecting how plaintiffs may be grouped in lawsuits and where they may be filed. The decision was designed to reduce the practice of picking trial locations believed to be more favorable to plaintiffs or, in some cases, defendants.

Each lawsuit costs $95 to file with the circuit clerk’s office, Ashley-Palmertree said.