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Mealey's Asbestos Bankruptcy

  • February 03, 2025

    Dismissal With Prejudice Warrants Award Of Costs, Asbestos-Talc Defendant Says

    NEW YORK — Voluntary dismissal with prejudice is “tantamount” to a judgment on the merits and warrants an award of costs or an explanation why such costs are not appropriate, a talc defendant told a federal judge in New York in a limited objection to a magistrate judge’s recommendation that the asbestos case be dismissed.

  • January 28, 2025

    Asbestos Claimant Seeks Pause Of Stay Relief Denial Appeal Pending Similar Case

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. —An asbestos personal injury claimant asks a North Carolina federal court to stay his appeal of a bankruptcy court’s decision not to lift the automatic stay in the Chapter 11 case of Ingersoll-Rand and Trane spinoffs Aldrich Pump LLC and Murray Boiler LLC until a similar appeal is decided by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • January 28, 2025

    Smith Law Says Beasley Allen Suit Over Talc Dust Up Doesn’t Upend Its Action

    JACKSON, Miss. — A law firm told a federal judge in Mississippi that its lawsuit against a second asbestos-talc firm was more akin to one for defamation and that neither res judicata nor the first-to-file rule required dismissal or transfer of the action.

  • January 27, 2025

    Pa. Top Court Permits Torts For Time-Barred Occupational Disease Claimants

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — The bargain between employees and employers in the occupational disease system cannot countenance completely extinguishing an asbestos claim that would be time-barred by the law, a divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in affirming lower courts while relying on the same logic it applied in the workers’ compensation system setting a decade ago.

  • January 27, 2025

    Magistrate Denies Insurer’s Bids To Compel Discovery In Asbestos Coverage Dispute

    BUFFALO, N.Y. — A federal magistrate judge in a single order denied an insurer’s motions to compel discovery in four similar suits against insurers filed by the estates of people who died purportedly from asbestos exposure, seeking payment of judgments entered against an asbestos mine, finding that though discovery of negotiations resulting in a funding agreement is related to the agreement’s impact, the disclosure of the agreement “is sufficient.”

  • January 24, 2025

    J&J, Man Awarded $15M By Connecticut Jury Debate Punitive Damages, Experts

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — In a quartet of briefs filed in a Connecticut court, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) entities and a mesothelioma sufferer who was awarded $15 million briefed the size of the award, what amount the court should award as punitive damages and whether the court properly admitted experts and instructed the jury.

  • January 24, 2025

    Wisconsin High Court Will Hear Asbestos Premises Liability, Punitive Damages Case

    MILWAUKEE — The Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed to wade into an asbestos case over a brewery owner’s liability under state law for injuries suffered by the employee of an independent contractor and whether the state’s cap on punitive damages applies to all compensatory damages or only those the plaintiff is likely to recover.

  • January 24, 2025

    Bankruptcy Judge Closes Chapter 11 Case Of 2nd J&J Spinoff

    TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey federal bankruptcy judge has closed the second Chapter 11 case of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff LLT Management LLC after the Official Committee of Talc Claimants reported that it would not petition the U.S. Supreme Court for review of the bankruptcy judge’s decision to dismiss the case due to the debtor’s lack of financial distress.

  • January 21, 2025

    Talc Supplier’s Chapter 11 Case Should Have Been Tossed, Receiver, Committee Say

    PHILADELPHIA — The board of directors of defunct talc supplier Whittaker, Clark & Daniels Inc. (WCD) lacked the power to file a bankruptcy petition in New Jersey on the company’s behalf because a South Carolina judge’s order appointing a receiver stripped the board of the authority to file for bankruptcy, the receiver and talc claimants’ representatives tell the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in their appeal of a bankruptcy judge’s denial of their bid to dismiss the Chapter 11 case.

  • January 17, 2025

    Cosmetics Company Ben Nye Says No Error In Confirmation Of Reorganization Plan

    SAN FRANCISCO — An appeal by asbestos plaintiffs and law firms of confirmation of the Chapter 11 Subchapter V plan of reorganization for family-run cosmetics company Ben Nye Co. Inc. to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) should be rejected because they failed to show that the Bankruptcy Court’s factual findings were wrong, the debtor says in an appellee brief.

  • January 16, 2025

    Shipbuilder Creditor Appeals Asbestos Debtor’s Insurer Settlement Protections

    RICHMOND, Va. — Shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc., a frequent co-defendant of Chapter 11 debtor Hopeman Brothers Inc. in asbestos cases, has appealed a Virginia federal bankruptcy judge’s approval of an $18 million settlement between the debtor and insurers, saying in its statement of issues on appeal that a U.S. district court must decide whether the approval order’s inclusion of a “nonconsensual third party release and non-debtor discharge and corresponding injunction” amounts to reversable error.

  • January 16, 2025

    Magistrate Judge Won’t Condition Talc Suit Dismissal On Expert Discovery

    NEW YORK — A man is free to sue whomever he wants, and because dismissal with prejudice precludes any future litigation on the claims, the talc defendant will not suffer any prejudice and is not entitled to discovery into an expert on whom the plaintiff no longer relies, a federal magistrate judge in New York said Jan. 15 in recommending that the court grant the motion.

  • January 14, 2025

    Pennsylvania Judge Molds Verdict, Handing J&J Win In Asbestos-Talc Case

    PITTSBURGH — A Pennsylvania judge molded an inconsistent verdict in favor of Johnson & Johnson, wrapping a more-than-monthlong trial that included a break for the holiday season by handing the company and various of its entities a defense verdict in the asbestos-talc case.

  • January 10, 2025

    Facing Insurer’s Opposition, Talc Supplier Seeks Extensions Of Exclusive Periods

    TRENTON, N.J. — Raw materials supplier and Chapter 11 debtor Presperse Corp. asked a New Jersey federal bankruptcy court to give it more time to file an amended plan of reorganization after the company’s lone insurer objected to the plan’s disclosure statement and disputed insurance coverage for asbestos personal injury claims.

  • January 09, 2025

    Avon Affiliates Granted More Time To File Chapter 11 Liquidation Plan

    WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware federal bankruptcy judge has given the U.S. divisions of cosmetics giant Avon more time to file a Chapter 11 liquidation plan after the debtors said they have begun negotiations with unsecured creditors and the U.S. trustee on a consensual plan to resolve the consolidated cases.

  • January 09, 2025

    Punitives, Bankruptcy Docs At Issue As Pittsburgh Asbestos Case Briefing Wraps

    PITTSBURGH — In post-trial briefing, an employer hit with $1.5 million in punitive damages told a Pennsylvania judge that the statute of repose should have barred the case, that there was insufficient evidence that it acted in a way that warranted the award, that the jury was improperly instructed on the issue and that a court ruling improperly handled expert testimony and access to bankruptcy trust documents.  But the couple awarded the $3.8 million mesothelioma verdict said the statute of repose does not apply to workplace safety claims, that there was ample evidence that the company breached its duty to workers and that its request for the bankruptcy filings was untimely.

  • January 06, 2025

    Judge Won’t Recuse From Asbestos-Talc Law Firm Spat

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — An Alabama federal judge on Jan. 3 declined to recuse himself from a law firm’s suit alleging breach of contract involving a partner’s handling of asbestos-talc claims involving Johnson & Johnson and its debtor affiliate, saying his former work for the firm did not bring his impartiality into question.

  • January 03, 2025

    FTCA Asbestos Trial Ends In Judgment For United States

    SEATTLE — A federal judge in Washington entered judgment for the United States after a bench trial in a Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) case involving home-based asbestos exposures originating from a shipyard, finding that alleged violations of regulations permitted the case to proceed to verdict but that a daughter could not establish sufficient causation for take-home or environmental claims related to her mother’s mesothelioma.

  • January 03, 2025

    5th Circuit Won’t Revive Asbestos Trust Expert’s Negligence Claim

    NEW ORLEANS — An asbestos expert failed in his effort to have the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals revive his negligence case against a company that performed an audit of his B-reader results that resulted in him being excluded from asbestos bankruptcy filings.

  • December 19, 2024

    Johnson & Johnson Can’t Swap Entities As Defendants, R.I. Judge Says

    PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Plaintiffs are ultimately the masters of their complaints and may sue who they see fit, a Rhode Island judge said in denying LLT Management LLC’s and Johnson & Johnson Holdco Inc.’s motion to substitute two related entities they claim now hold asbestos-talc related liabilities.

  • December 19, 2024

    Talc Supplier Tells 3rd Circuit No Cause Shown To Dismiss Chapter 11 Case

    PHILADELPHIA — A receiver appointed in South Carolina for defunct talc supplier Whittaker, Clark & Daniels Inc. (WCD) had no authority to place the company into bankruptcy in New Jersey because he never applied to be appointed as ancillary receiver, so the Chapter 11 petition approved by WCD’s board is valid and a New Jersey federal bankruptcy judge’s denial of the receiver’s bid to dismiss the case should stand, the debtor told the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Dec. 18 in a consolidated appeal of the ruling.

  • December 18, 2024

    Contempt, Stay At Issue In Asbestos Expert Subpoena Case

    NEW YORK — An asbestos expert, her hospital employer and Johnson & Johnson, locked in a battle over production of the identities of individuals the expert relied on in a study on talc exposures, briefed a New York Supreme Court justice on whether contempt sanctions are warranted for failure to produce evidence or whether a forthcoming motion to reargue and a pending motion for a protective order stayed an appellate court’s ruling, according to documents filed on the court’s docket.

  • December 17, 2024

    Experts, Punitive Damages At Heart Of Connecticut Motions After $15M Talc Verdict

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A man urged a Connecticut judge to impose punitive damages in the wake of a $15 million verdict, saying that Johnson & Johnson (J&J) knew for decades about the dangers of asbestos and that there were asbestos fibers in its talc products but continued marketing a product that would be used on children.  But in a trio of briefs, J&J and its various entities said the verdict resulted from improper court decisions on the admission of experts, wrongly given instructions and belabored references to other litigation the company faces.

  • December 17, 2024

    J&J Opposes Pro Hac Vice Status In Wake Of Conduct Behind New Trial Order

    PORTLAND, Ore. — Johnson & Johnson entities urged a judge not to renew the pro hac vice status of plaintiff attorney Ben Adams citing the failure to heed court orders and other misconduct that a trial court judge found reached such a level that it likely influenced the jury and required retrying a case that produced a $260 million asbestos-talc verdict that originally included $200 million in punitive damages.

  • December 12, 2024

    No Cert Petition Planned For Dismissal Of J&J Spinoff’s 2nd Chapter 11 Case

    TRENTON, N.J. — There will be no U.S. Supreme Court petition filed by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff LLT Management LLC over the second dismissal of its Chapter 11 case, the Official Committee of Talc Claimants told a New Jersey federal bankruptcy judge in preparation for a hearing to decide if the case should be closed.