Mealey's Asbestos Bankruptcy
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July 30, 2024
Illinois Jury Awards $24.46M In Asbestos Damages To Talc-Facility Janitor, Wife
CHICAGO — An Illinois jury hit Avon Products Inc. with a $24.46 million asbestos verdict, including $1 million in punitive damages, after finding the company responsible for a former janitor’s exposure to asbestos present at a talc-processing facility, sources told Mealey’s Publications.
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July 30, 2024
Boiler Company Can’t Escape Asbestos Verdict, Punitives, New York Justice Says
NEW YORK — Evidence of a man’s suffering and how it impacted his life and a company’s handling of asbestos support a jury’s $38 million award that included $6.5 million in punitive damages, a New York justice said in affirming the verdict and denying a boiler maker a new trial or judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
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July 29, 2024
Creditors Seek Dismissal Of Barretts Minerals And Affiliate’s Chapter 11 Cases
HOUSTON — The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the jointly administered Chapter 11 cases of Barretts Minerals Inc. (BMI) and an affiliate have moved to dismiss the cases, arguing that following the sale of their talc business, they “no longer have a business to rehabilitate” and “no longer hold any assets with value to maximize in these cases.”
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July 26, 2024
3rd Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of LTL Management’s 2nd Chapter 11 Case
PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a July 25 nonprecedential opinion affirmed a New Jersey federal bankruptcy court’s dismissal of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff LTL Management LLC’s second attempt to reorganize through bankruptcy, rejecting the debtor’s argument that its second Chapter 11 case is valid because it proved that its financial resources will probably be wiped out by asbestos lawsuits.
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July 26, 2024
Trustee Rejects Claim That Judge-Lawyer Relationship Didn’t Require Disclosure
HOUSTON — In a battle over fees awarded to a law firm in the Honx Inc. asbestos bankruptcy case, the trustee told the court that a relationship between one of the firm’s partners and a bankruptcy judge in the same district at the very least gives the appearance of partiality and the argument that the firm didn’t need to disclose the relationship is “astonishing.”
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July 25, 2024
J&J, Plaintiffs Extend Battle Over Inspection Of Asbestos Expert’s Lab
TRENTON, N.J. — Johnson & Johnson entities objected to a special master’s ruling precluding them from inspecting expert William Longo’s lab, saying his type of “sham-magic” requires a unique solution. But in response, the plaintiffs say that if the outcome of the testing is truly as clear as the defendants portray it, then they do not require such unprecedented and burdensome discovery.
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July 25, 2024
Motions, Appointments Follow Bankruptcy Petition Of Ship Subcontractor Hopeman
RICHMOND, Va. — In the weeks since it filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 in a Virginia bankruptcy court, former ship subcontractor Hopeman Brothers Inc. has filed its liquidation plan, disclosure statement, motions to approve two settlements with insurers and a flurry of motions regarding the administration of its bankruptcy.
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July 25, 2024
South Carolina High Court Majority Says Insurer Not Prejudiced By Late Notice
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The majority of the South Carolina Supreme Court on July 24 affirmed an appellate court’s ruling in an asbestos coverage suit, agreeing with the lower court that the insurer was not prejudiced by its insured’s late notice of the underlying asbestos exposure lawsuit and that the insured’s untimely notice was not a breach of the contract.
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July 24, 2024
Shipyard Defendant Can’t Raise Government Immunity In Asbestos Case, Judge Says
NEW ORLEANS — A bankruptcy moots a decision on summary judgment in one instance, but in granting summary judgment and precluding a shipyard from raising the government immunity defense, a federal judge said Louisiana federal courts routinely hold that the defendant is not entitled to the defense.
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July 23, 2024
Libby, Mont., Resident Opposes Stay In Asbestos Trust Personal Injury Case
MISSOULA, Mont. — A Libby, Mont., resident who sued the WRG Asbestos Personal Injury trust in Montana federal court after having his claim denied says staying the action now means more delay for a claim already pending for almost two decades.
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July 22, 2024
Parties To Asbestos-Talc Subpoena Appeal Debate Impact Of Expert Ruling
RICHMOND, Va. — Parties to a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals case involving a ruling quashing a subpoena into the identifies of individuals who participated on a causation study recently filed letter briefs about the relevance of a ruling dismissing LTL Management LLC’s case against a different expert.
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July 19, 2024
Judge Rejects Preemption, Strict Liability Arguments After $8M Asbestos Verdict
GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Federal law preempting regulations on railway operations does not cover strict liability claims stemming from the accumulation of asbestos and asbestos-tainted vermiculite at a Libby, Mont., railway, a federal judge in Montana said in denying a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV).
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July 19, 2024
California Anti-SLAPP Statute Dooms RICO Asbestos Action, Law Firm Defendants Say
CHICAGO — Common contacts in California means that state’s anti-SLAPP statute governs a Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit filed in Illinois federal claiming that a law firm fabricated asbestos claims and because the action targets protected conduct, the entire suit must be dismissed, Simmons Hanley Conroy LLP say in a motion to strike.
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July 19, 2024
Judge Delays Case Against Asbestos Trust Citing Pending Motion To Stay
MISSOULA, Mont. — The federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against the WRG Asbestos PI Trust said July 18 that in light of the trust’s pending motion to stay the case until resolution of a declaratory judgment action filed with the bankruptcy court, he would continue an upcoming pretrial conference.
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July 19, 2024
Talc MDL Special Master Denies Litigation Funding Discovery Request
TRENTON, N.J. — Questions surrounding litigation funding in the asbestos-talc federal multidistrict litigation don’t go to the claims or defenses before the court, and ordering discovery simply because plaintiffs refuse to settle would open the floodgates to such requests, a federal special master said, quashing subpoenas.
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July 18, 2024
J&J, Bankrupt Talc Miners Resolve Indemnification Dispute With $500M Settlement
WILMINGTON, Del. — Various Johnson & Johnson entities will pay more than $500 million to two bankrupt talc-mining companies, resolving questions surrounding indemnification for asbestos and other talc-related liabilities and paving the way for resolution of the bankruptcy plans, according to a joint motion for approval.
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July 18, 2024
Former Nash Directors’ Motion To Dismiss Chapter 7 Trustee’s Breach Action Denied
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Rejecting arguments that some claims are time-barred because the Chapter 7 trustee for asbestos debtor The Nash Engineering Co. failed to adequately plead his tolling theory of fraudulent concealment and has neither established the existence of a fiduciary relationship nor rebutted the business judgment rule, a federal judge in Connecticut denied three former Nash directors’ motion to dismiss the trustee’s breach of fiduciary duty suit against them.
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July 17, 2024
Nash Chapter 7 Trustee’s Fraudulent Transfer Action Mostly Survives Dismissal
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Although dismissing two fraudulent transfer claims under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code as time-barred, a federal judge in Connecticut has allowed the remainder of the Chapter 7 trustee for asbestos debtor The Nash Engineering Co.’s adversary proceeding seeking the return of more than $59 million from a holding company and its members to the debtor’s estate to proceed.
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July 15, 2024
Cosmetics Company Ben Nye Seeks Confirmation Of Reorganization Plan
LOS ANGELES — A cosmetics company founded by an Oscar-winning Hollywood movie studio makeup director that was forced into bankruptcy by asbestos talc claims seeks approval in California federal bankruptcy court of a Chapter 11 plan of reorganization that proposes paying $203,165 in disposable income to unsecured creditors, including asbestos claimants.
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July 15, 2024
3rd Circuit Will Hear Appeals Of Talc Chapter 11 Case Dismissal Denial Together
PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has consolidated appeals filed by asbestos claimants and the receiver for defunct talc supplier Whittaker, Clark & Daniels Inc. (WCD) of a New Jersey federal judge’s denial of the receiver’s bid to dismiss the company’s Chapter 11 case.
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July 11, 2024
Bankrupt Cosmetics Company Agrees To Discovery Requests By Asbestos Claimants
LOS ANGELES — A California federal bankruptcy judge approved a stipulation under which Chapter 11 debtor Ben Nye Co. Inc. and the company’s financial advisers will produce documents about the debtor’s financial affairs, the use of talc in its products and other topics to five asbestos personal injury law firms and their clients.
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July 11, 2024
Dallas Jury Awards $500,000 For Man’s Mesothelioma
DALLAS — A Texas judge entered judgment on a $500,000 asbestos verdict, finding that the plaintiffs are entitled to costs and various interest on the $325,000 in exemplary damages awarded by the jury.
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July 09, 2024
Asbestos Lab Analyst’s Work With Longo Requires Deposition, Talc Company Says
ATLANTA — A lab analyst isn’t an “innocent bystander” but the person who actually peers into the microscope, makes observations about whether talc contains asbestos and collaborates closely with testifying witness William Longo in asbestos litigation, a talc company told a federal judge in Georgia in response to an objection to a magistrate judge’s ruling permitting the man’s deposition.
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July 09, 2024
N.Y. Justice: Moline, Hospital Don’t Have To Disclose Asbestos Study Subjects
NEW YORK — Asbestos expert Jacqueline Moline and her employer obscured the names of individuals used on two of her studies on talc as required by law, and various Johnson & Johnson entities have not shown that they cannot challenge her opinions or adequately defend themselves absent the identity of those individuals, a New York justice said in granting a motion to quash and denying a motion to compel.
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July 08, 2024
Judge: Plaintiffs Lack Standing To Block ‘Hypothetical’ J&J Asbestos Bankruptcy
TRENTON, N.J. — Class action plaintiffs told a federal judge in New Jersey that they would appeal his ruling denying a restraining order and finding that alleged injuries from a hypothetical future asbestos-talc bankruptcy and other potential conduct do not provide standing to enjoin the filing of such a case.