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Mealey's Asbestos Bankruptcy

  • February 03, 2023

    Federal Jury Awards $275,000 In Asbestos Case Against Ford

    GREENSBORO, N.C. — A federal jury in North Carolina found Ford Motor Co. liable under a product liability failure-to-warn cause of action and awarded $275,000 on his widow’s wrongful death claim.

  • February 02, 2023

    Law Firm, Asbestos Claimants Appeal HONX Rulings To District Court

    HOUSTON — A Dallas law firm and the hundreds of asbestos personal injury claimants it represents have appealed rulings by the federal bankruptcy court in the Chapter 11 case of Hess Corp. affiliate HONX Inc. scheduling an asbestos liability estimation hearing for the debtor, directing discovery production from the firm and threatening $10,000 daily “coercive” sanctions for noncompliance.

  • January 30, 2023

    3rd Circuit Dismisses Johnson & Johnson Unit’s Chapter 11 Case

    PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 30 rejected retail giant Johnson & Johnson’s attempt to place all of its asbestos-talc liability with an affiliate and then bankrupt it, ordering the affiliate’s Chapter 11 case closed after finding that because it was not in financial distress, its petition does not serve a valid bankruptcy purpose and was filed in bad faith.

  • January 30, 2023

    W.R. Grace Insurer Profits Off Delayed Payments, Asbestos Disease Sufferer Says

    GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Zurich American Insurance Co. intentionally made low-ball settlement offers and delayed payments for basic health care claims such as supplemental oxygen needed by Libby, Mont., asbestos-disease sufferers to continue profiting off what is otherwise a liability, a man awarded $36.5 million from the insurer says in a federal lawsuit filed in Montana.

  • January 25, 2023

    Bestwall Asbestos Claimants Look To Take Dismissal Of Their Appeals To 4th Circuit

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Asbestos personal injury claimants in the Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific spinoff Bestwall LLC are seeking more time in North Carolina federal court to appeal to the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals the dismissal of their challenges to a bankruptcy judge’s contempt finding against them for not providing complete information to the debtor in a discovery questionnaire.

  • January 25, 2023

    Court Says Ship Owner Owed Duty To Worker, But Vacates Verdict, Sanction

    TACOMA, Wash. — The owner of a decommissioned ship owed a duty to a man who worked and was allegedly exposed to asbestos while dismantling it but not as a lease owner of the property and the trial court improperly sanctioned the defendant for its 2017 destruction of documents, a Washington appeals court said in vacating judgment and granting a new trial on Jan. 24.

  • January 24, 2023

    LTL Management Opposes Appeal To 3rd Circuit Of Injunction Barring States’ Suits

    PHILADELPHIA — With no “recurring, divisive question of law” presented, the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals should deny a petition for direct appeal filed by New Mexico and Mississippi of an order in the Chapter 11 case of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) debtor LTL Management LLC enjoining the states’ consumer protection lawsuits over the sale of allegedly asbestos-laden talcum powder, the debtor says in a response to the petition in the appellate court.

  • January 24, 2023

    Chapter 11 Case Of Owens-Illinois Debtor Paddock Enterprises Closed

    WILMINGTON, Del. — The federal bankruptcy court in Delaware issued an order on Jan. 23 closing the Chapter 11 case of Owens-Illinois Inc. spinoff and asbestos debtor Paddock Enterprises LLC.

  • January 24, 2023

    J&J Debtor Seeks Names Of All 33 Participants In Asbestos-Talc Study

    TRENTON, N.J. — LTL Management LLC, the Chapter 11 debtor holding all of Johnson & Johnson’s asbestos liabilities, is asking a New Jersey federal bankruptcy judge to order the occupational disease expert who conducted a study on the connection between asbestos in talcum powder and mesothelioma to produce the names of all 33 study subjects based on the discovery that one of the participants had also submitted a claim for occupational exposure to asbestos in addition to exposure to talc.

  • January 23, 2023

    Louisiana Court Affirms Experts, Take-Home Component Of $10.35M Asbestos Award

    NEW ORLEANS — A divided Louisiana appellate court turned away challenges about the nature of take-home asbestos claims, the admission of testimony from causation experts and the size of the resulting $10.35 million verdict.

  • January 23, 2023

    Missouri Judge Enters $5.37M Judgment After Mesothelioma Verdict

    ST. LOUIS — A judge in Missouri offset a $6 million asbestos verdict for a woman’s fatal mesothelioma by more than $600,000 for amounts received by the plaintiff in previous settlements.

  • January 20, 2023

    J&J Debtor Files Fraud Suit Over 2nd Asbestos Talc Study And Article

    TRENTON, N.J. — After leveling fraud claims against the author of an asbestos talc study, Johnson & Johnson’s bankrupt affiliate LTL Management LLC is taking aim at three pathologists who conducted a follow-up study of more malignant mesothelioma patients and their use of talcum powder in an adversary action filed in New Jersey federal bankruptcy court.

  • January 20, 2023

    South Carolina Top Court To Review Ruling Upping Asbestos Verdict To Nearly $2M

    SPARTANBURG, S.C. — The South Carolina Supreme Court agreed to take a look at whether a trial court erred in increasing an asbestos award from $300,000 to almost $2 million and in calculating setoffs based on plaintiffs’ allocation of proceeds.

  • January 19, 2023

    Justice Department Announces New Director For U.S. Trustee Program

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Jan. 18 that the executive director of the National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center has been named as the new director of the DOJ’s U.S. Trustee Program (USTP).

  • January 18, 2023

    Montana Seeks Comments On $18.5M Asbestos Settlement With W.R. Grace

    WILMINGTON, Del. — W.R. Grace & Co. has moved a Delaware federal bankruptcy judge to approve settlement of a claim by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) for natural resource damages stemming from “Operable Unit 3” (OU3) at the Libby Asbestos Superfund site.

  • January 17, 2023

    Former Officers Of Debtor Nash Seek Defense Costs For Trustee’s Claims

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Three former officers and directors of debtor The Nash Engineering Co. are seeking relief from the automatic stay so one of the company’s insurers can advance them the costs needed to defend claims by the Chapter 7 trustee that they breached their fiduciary duties when negotiating settlements with asbestos insurers.

  • January 13, 2023

    Georgia-Pacific Debtor Refutes Import Of 3M Ruling To Asbestos Injunction Appeal

    RICHMOND, Va. — Asbestos claimants’ representatives in the Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific bankrupt unit Bestwall LLC again fail in their reliance on a nonasbestos bankruptcy ruling in multidistrict litigation against 3M to support their position on appeal in their challenge to a bankruptcy injunction protecting Georgia-Pacific, Bestwall says in Jan. 12 response to a notice of supplemental authority in the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • January 13, 2023

    Hess Debtor’s Asbestos Committee Appeals Denial Of Motion To Dismiss Case

    HOUSTON — The asbestos claimants’ committee for the Chapter 11 case of Hess Corp. affiliate HONX Inc. is seeking an interlocutory appeal in federal district court of a bankruptcy court’s denial of its request to dismiss HONX’s case for being filed in bad faith, according to a Jan. 12 court notice.

  • January 13, 2023

    Montana Judge Affirms $30M Asbestos Punitive Award Against W.R. Grace Insurer

    GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Saying that a workers’ compensation insurer was aware of the dangers of asbestos and knew or intentionally disregarded the fact that if it didn’t step in, workers at W.R. Grace’s Libby, Mont., vermiculite mine would be exposed with “truly catastrophic” consequences, a Montana judge found a jury’s $30 million punitive damages award appropriate and the conduct sufficient to exceed the state’s $10 million cap.

  • January 12, 2023

    Hess, Debtor HONX Say Attempt To Drop Virgin Islands Asbestos Claims Violates Stay

    HOUSTON — A law firm’s attempt to dismiss hundreds of asbestos personal injury claims against Hess Corp. affiliate and Chapter 11 debtor HONX Inc. pending before courts in the U.S. Virgin Islands is a violation of the bankruptcy stay and an “act of gamesmanship” so the firm can pursue its claims against Hess, the debtor and Hess say in opposition to the firm’s notice of intent to dismiss filed in Texas federal bankruptcy court.

  • January 11, 2023

    J&J Wants Rehearing On California Court’s Expert Admission Ruling

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A court erred in affirming admission at trial of expert causation testimony in an asbestos-talc case, and the error was anything but harmless, as there is a reasonable probability of a different outcome had the court excluded opinions on fibrous talc’s role in mesothelioma and exposure extrapolation from testing, two Johnson & Johnson entities argue in a petition for rehearing.

  • January 09, 2023

    Mesothelioma Plaintiff: Totality Of Evidence Warrants Claim Against Employer

    HARTFORD, Conn. — A former employer’s strategy of viewing individual facts in isolation to avoid facing the substantially certain injury that would result from its conduct falls apart when one looks at how it deceived employees and customers about asbestos, a plaintiff told a Connecticut appeals court.

  • January 03, 2023

    Judge Admits Testimony Of Former Montana Senator In Asbestos-Screening Fight

    MISSOULA, Mont. — Former Sen. Max Baucus was timely disclosed as an expert and, to ensure that there is no prejudice to a railway prosecuting a False Claims Act (FCA) suit, it may depose him, but disclosure of a hybrid-expert witness after the close for fact witnesses requires excluding a second expert, a federal judge in Montana said.

  • December 23, 2022

    Jury Awards $40.8M In Asbestos Case Damages, Adds $11.3M In Punitives

    LOS ANGELES — A California judge entered judgment on a $52.1 million verdict after a jury awarded a mesothelioma sufferer and her husband $11.3 million in punitive damages in a combined asbestos-talc and take-home exposure case.

  • December 21, 2022

    Indemnification Row Between Trust, Debtors Settles For $350,000

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A defunct boiler manufacturer’s asbestos personal injury trust will pay a bankrupt spinoff of Ingersoll-Rand Co. and Trane U.S. Inc. $350,000 to settle the spinoff’s claim against the trust for more than $25 million in unreimbursed expenses relating to the resolution of asbestos personal injury claims, with the settlement winning approval in North Carolina federal bankruptcy court.

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