Mealey's Asbestos Bankruptcy : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Asbestos Bankruptcy

April 24, 2024
Montana Jury Awards $8M In Pair Of Lawsuits Against BNSF

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — A federal jury in Montana found that BNSF Railway Co.’s handling of asbestos at the Libby, Mont., vermiculite mine fell outside its duties as a common carrier and awarded $4 million to each of two plaintiffs who died as a result of their resulting exposures to asbestos.
April 23, 2024
Florida Jury Returns Defense Verdict In Asbestos-Talc Trial

SARASOTA, Fla. — A Florida jury returned a defense verdict for Johnson & Johnson (J&J) on April 18, rejecting claims that its consumer talc contained asbestos that caused a woman’s fatal ovarian cancer, sources told Mealey Publications.
April 19, 2024
Punitive Damages, Strict Liability Claims Survive In Libby, Mont., Asbestos Case

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Evidence at an asbestos trial over exposures arising from a railway’s actions at the Libby, Mont., vermiculite mine creates a prima facie case for the railway’s strict liability for engaging in abnormally dangerous activities, and the company can face punitive damages for the conduct of its predecessors under Montana law because there was sufficient evidence at trial that they knew the risks of asbestos for the claim to go to the jury, a federal judge said in denying two motions for a directed verdict on April 18 and April 17.
April 19, 2024
Bar Date For Asbestos Claims Set In New Chapter 11 Case Of Niche Cosmetics Company

LOS ANGELES — A California federal bankruptcy judge has set a bar date for holders of asbestos claims to file proofs of claim in the new Chapter 11 case of professional cosmetics maker Ben Nye Co. Inc. over the objections of asbestos personal injury law firms and their clients in suits naming the debtor as a defendant.
April 18, 2024
Court: Positive Outlook Doesn’t Outweigh Disclosures In Asbestos Securities Class

NEW YORK — Even while putting a positive spin on Garrett Motion Inc.’s future, the company repeatedly warned investors about the dire financial situation posed by the asbestos-related liabilities it acquired in its spinoff from Honeywell International Inc., and the company was unlikely to believe it could mislead the market given the public nature of its information, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said April 17 in affirming dismissal of a securities class action.
April 18, 2024
Request For Commercial Creditor Group For Talc Supplier’s Chapter 11 Case Denied

TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey federal bankruptcy judge denied a contested motion by an ad hoc group of general unsecured commercial creditors of defunct talc supplier Whittaker, Clark & Daniels Inc. (WCD) and affiliated debtors to have the U.S. trustee appoint an official committee to represent the interests of commercial creditors in the bankruptcy proceeding.
April 17, 2024
Judge Rules On Judgment Motions In Asbestos Suit Involving Guaranty Association

NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge denied summary judgment to two suppliers of asbestos products in an asbestos liability suit against them, the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association (LIGA) and multiple other parties over a man’s exposure to asbestos resulting from his work at a shipyard, finding that fact questions remain as to “whether the decedent was exposed to asbestos products manufactured” by these two suppliers.
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 11, 2024
Plaintiffs, 11 Defendants Resolve Take-Home Asbestos Case At Trial’s Outset

NEW ORLEANS — A woman’s survivors who claimed that she suffered exposure to asbestos on the clothing of her husband who worked at Avondale Shipyards and 11 defendants settled at the outset of a trial originally projected to take five weeks but that a federal judge in Louisiana ordered completed in three weeks.
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 10, 2024
J&J Entities Say They Have No Talc-Related Liabilities

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Talc liabilities followed a separate Johnson & Johnson entity and under Texas law cannot be attributed to three other companies, the companies argue in a motion to strike the asbestos-talc claims against them in a Connecticut court.
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 27, 2024
South Carolina Jury Returns $1.75M Asbestos Verdict Against John Crane

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A South Carolina jury awarded $1.75 million to a widow whose husband developed mesothelioma and died after exposure to asbestos in John Crane Inc. gaskets, finding the company liable for negligence but not strict liability.
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.