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Mealey's Asbestos Bankruptcy

  • April 12, 2024

    Nash Chapter 7 Trustee’s Fraudulent Transfer Action Goes To District Court

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — The Chapter 7 trustee for asbestos debtor The Nash Engineering Co. and an affiliate holding company and its members have taken the trustee’s $59 million fraudulent transfer adversary proceeding to a Connecticut federal district court, where the trustee’s separate breach of fiduciary duty suit against former Nash directors is pending.

  • April 11, 2024

    U.S. Trustee Seeks Return Of Fees Due To Undisclosed Attorney-Judge Relationship

    HOUSTON — A Texas law firm should return more than $400,000 in fees it was awarded for work on mediation in the asbestos bankruptcy case of Hess Corp. affiliate HONX Inc. because it never disclosed a romantic relationship between one of its attorneys and the bankruptcy judge who acted as mediator, the U.S. trustee says in a federal bankruptcy court motion to vacate the fee award and order the firm to pay it back to HONX’s estate as a sanction for its bad faith conduct.

  • April 10, 2024

    Viability Of UCL Class Action Involving Asbestos And Talc Rests With 9th Circuit

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals heard oral arguments over whether allegations of a decades-long advertising campaign about the safety and purity of talcum powder sufficiently specifies the advertising in question and saves a California unfair competition law (UCL) class action alleging that in reality the products contained asbestos and other contaminants.

  • April 09, 2024

    Retired CARD Director Says BNSF Deposition Went Off The Rails

    GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Despite agreeing to limit deposition questions to mesothelioma and relevant issues, a railway asked a retired director of a medical clinic about unrelated diseases and practices, the man tells a federal judge in Montana in seeking a protective order and sanctions.

  • April 08, 2024

    Barretts Minerals Asbestos Claimants Appeal Ruling Allowing Some Tort Actions

    HOUSTON — The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the Chapter 11 case of talc supplier Barretts Minerals Inc. (BMI) has appealed a Texas federal bankruptcy court order allowing claims against two affiliates over the testing of talc for asbestos to proceed in the tort system while all other claims remain stayed by the bankruptcy case.

  • April 01, 2024

    Railway Says Montana Asbestos Screener Stuck ‘Head In Sand’

    MISSOULA, Mont. — Evidence introduced at trial showed a Libby, Mont., medical facility must have known the B-read-only and other claims it submitted to a special asbestos-related Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) program were not a diagnosis and were fraudulent, and it cannot avoid liability by claiming it was simply doing its best when in reality it was sticking its head in the sand over the program’s requirements, a railway tells the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a March 29 answering brief.

  • April 01, 2024

    2nd High Court Petition Over Injunction For Georgia-Pacific Asbestos Debtor Opposed

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Georgia-Pacific and spinoff debtor Bestwall LLC launched their second defense in the U.S. Supreme Court of a bankruptcy injunction barring asbestos claims against Georgia-Pacific and other nondebtor affiliates, putting forth the same arguments in a March 29 opposition to a certiorari petition filed by the future asbestos claimants’ representative as they asserted in their opposition to a separate petition filed by an asbestos claimants’ committee seeking to have the injunction overturned.

  • March 28, 2024

    Georgia-Pacific, Debtor Defend Bankruptcy Injunction In Supreme Court

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — With no split in authority and no question important enough for review, the U.S. Supreme Court should deny a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the Official Committee of Asbestos Claimants in the Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific spinoff Bestwall LLC seeking to overturn a bankruptcy injunction barring asbestos claims against Georgia-Pacific and other nondebtor affiliates, respondents Bestwall and Georgia-Pacific say in their brief in opposition to the petition.

  • March 26, 2024

    4th Circuit Says No Rehearing In Asbestos Coverage Row With Guaranty Association

    RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied an insurer’s request for rehearing and rehearing en banc of the court’s ruling dismissing the insurer’s appeal of a district court’s order remanding to state court a receiver’s asbestos coverage suit against insurers and the South Carolina Property and Casualty Insurance Guaranty Association.

  • March 21, 2024

    Plaintiff, W.R. Grace Trust Debate Proper Place For Tort Claim

    MISSOULA, Mo. — W.R. Grace & Co.’s asbestos trust and a former nonbinding arbitration claimant briefed a Montana federal court on whether resolution of his tort claim simply seeks a declaration of the disease from which he suffers or would require interpretation of the bankruptcy trust’s distribution procedures and therefore falls under the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court.

  • March 20, 2024

    Standing To Object To Chapter 11 Plan Argued In Supreme Court

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The question of who has standing to object to a Chapter 11 plan of reorganization was debated March 19 in the U.S. Supreme Court, with some justices questioning why asbestos debtors Kaiser Gypsum Co. Inc. and Hanson Permanente Cement Inc. are opposed to having their main liability insurer speak out against their bankruptcy plan.

  • March 19, 2024

    Talc Debtors Imerys, Cyprus Set Approval Process For Disclosure Statements

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Chapter 11 asbestos talc debtors Imerys Talc America Inc. and Cyprus Mines Corp. have extended the time to file objections to the disclosure statements for their plans of reorganization and announced the date for the Delaware federal bankruptcy court to hold a hearing on their motion to approve the statements.

  • March 18, 2024

    Supplier Seeks Judgment In Asbestos Liability Case Involving Insolvent Insurer

    NEW ORLEANS — A purported supplier of asbestos-containing products moved for partial summary judgment and filed a brief in support in an asbestos liability suit against it, the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association (LIGA) and multiple other parties over a man’s exposure to asbestos resulting from his work at a shipyard, asserting that partial summary judgment should be granted because the purported supplier was not a “professional vendor.”

  • March 12, 2024

    Talc Study Evidence Crucial To Defending Case, Defendant Says

    RICHMOND, Va. — A talc defendant defended its need for a list of mesothelioma study participants from a third party, saying in a brief to the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the evidence is the only way it has of refuting asbestos-talc claims at trial and that the burden of showing otherwise lies with the party seeking to quash the subpoena.

  • March 11, 2024

    Justice Stays, Severs Claims Against Insolvent Insurer In Asbestos Coverage Row

    CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — A New York state court justice granted a stay and severed proceedings as to the insured of an insolvent insurer in an estate’s asbestos liability case filed against numerous parties involved in the manufacture and distribution of asbestos-containing products, finding that the claims against the other defendants may go forward without causing undue burden to the estate of the decedent.

  • March 11, 2024

    Asbestos Talc Debtors Seek To Delay Adversary Ruling Due To Ongoing Mediation

    TRENTON, N.J. — Defunct talc supplier Whittaker, Clark & Daniels Inc. (WCD) and affiliated debtors filed a stipulation on March 10 seeking entry of an agreed order by a New Jersey federal bankruptcy judge to have the judge hold off on issuing a decision on the debtors’ summary judgment motion in an adversary action for two months to allow mediation on a global resolution of all issues to continue.

  • March 08, 2024

    Mistrial Declared After Florida Jury Hangs In Ovarian Cancer Talc Trial

    MIAMI — A Florida asbestos trial ended in a hung jury after the jury twice told the judge that it could not reach a decision despite a day and a half of deliberations about Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) liability for the death of an anesthesiologist from ovarian cancer.

  • March 07, 2024

    LTL Management Says Appellee Arguments Backing Chapter 11 Dismissal Fail

    PHILADELPHIA — A New Jersey federal bankruptcy court wrongly imposed an insolvency requirement in dismissing the second Chapter 11 case of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff LTL Management LLC, and the U.S. trustee, asbestos claimants and other appellees “do little to defend the lower court’s misunderstanding,” the debtor says in its appeal to the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals of the dismissal of its second attempt to reorganize through bankruptcy.

  • March 07, 2024

    New York Court: Evidence Behind $23M Asbestos Verdict Meets Causation Standard

    NEW YORK — A New York appeals court found that a man’s testimony about the work he performed with valves and expert testimony detailing the levels of resulting exposure and how that impacted his risk of mesothelioma satisfied Nemeth v. Brenntag N. Am. and affirmed asbestos jury awards of $13 million in past pain and suffering and $10 million for future pain and suffering.

  • March 05, 2024

    Asbestos Claimants Appeal Denial Of Chapter 11 Dismissal Directly To 4th Circuit

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Asbestos claimants in the joint Chapter 11 case of Ingersoll-Rand and Trane spinoffs Aldrich Pump LLC and Murray Boiler LLC have appealed a North Carolina bankruptcy court’s decision not to dismiss the case directly to the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • March 01, 2024

    Talc Special Master Quashes Subpoena Seeking Moline Study Participants

    TRENTON, N.J. — Because asbestos expert Jacqueline Moline will not testify at trial, and no other expert appears to rely on her study involving asbestos-talc exposure and mesothelioma, Johnson & Johnson’s subpoena seeking the names of individuals in the study is irrelevant, a special master in the federal talc multidistrict litigation said Feb. 29 in granting a motion to quash.

  • February 29, 2024

    In High Court, Kaiser Insurer Says It Has Standing ‘Twice Over’ In Chapter 11 Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The primary insurer of Chapter 11 asbestos debtors Kaiser Gypsum Co. Inc. and Hanson Permanente Cement Inc. is obligated to pay most of the debtors’ debts and is a creditor, giving it standing to object to the debtors’ reorganization plan, the insurer tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a reply brief on the merits.

  • February 29, 2024

    South Carolina Top Court Rejects Cumulative Exposure Argument, Affirms Verdict

    CHARLESTON, S.C. — Expert testimony and other evidence that led to an asbestos verdict did not constitute cumulative exposure theory, and lower court rulings did not run afoul of the state’s causation standard, the South Carolina Supreme Court said Feb. 28.

  • February 28, 2024

    Judge: Former Libby, Mont., Asbestos Clinic Director Must Sit For Deposition

    GREAT FALLS, Mont. — A federal judge in Montana overseeing an asbestos action against a railway denied two motions to quash a subpoena issued to the former director of a medical clinic in Libby, Mont., giving the parties two hours to depose the witness and circumscribing what may be asked at the deposition.

  • February 27, 2024

    4th Circuit Tosses Appeal Of Asbestos Coverage Row With S.C. Guaranty Association

    RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Feb. 26 dismissed an insurer’s appeal of a district court’s order remanding to state court a receiver’s asbestos coverage suit against insurers and the South Carolina Property and Casualty Insurance Guaranty Association, finding that the court does not have jurisdiction over the remand order.