Mealey's Asbestos
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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
Plaintiff/Defense Experts Testifying Since Jan. 1, 2002
The following is a listing of plaintiff and defense experts who testified in trials covered by Mealey's Litigation Report: Asbestos since Jan. 1, 2002.
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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 30, 2024
New Jersey Judge: J&J Can’t Show Lawyer Violated Rules, Need For Disqualification
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — A former attorney who helped plot Johnson & Johnson’s bankruptcy strategy clearly enjoys privileged information, but there is no evidence that he shared that information with plaintiffs’ attorneys in his role as the executive of a private company, a New Jersey judge said in declining to disqualify the law firm.
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July 29, 2024
J&J To Federal Talc MDL: State Disqualification Ruling Wrong
TRENTON, N.J. — The federal multidistrict talc litigation court should adopt a state court judge’s opinion declining to disqualify plaintiffs’ lawyers, Johnson & Johnson tells the court in briefing, because that ruling for the first time upturns the presumption that the flow of privileged information goes both directions when parties share confidences and ignores evidence suggesting that such sharing occurred in this case.
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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PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a July 25 nonprecedential opinion affirmed a New Jersey federal bankruptcy court’s dismissal of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff LTL Management LLC’s second attempt to reorganize through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 26, 2024
Railway Says No Way Statute Of Limitations Tolled For Asbestos Case
NEW ORLEANS — There is no evidence that an agreement tolling the statute of limitations extended beyond its original period, and alleged evidence of Union Pacific Railroad Co.’s conduct in other cases and instances says nothing about whether it agreed to continue allowing the statute of limitations in a man’ asbestosis case, the railway tells the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
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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
J&J Seeks To Exclude General Causation Experts In Asbestos-Talc MDL
TRENTON, N.J. — Experts in the asbestos-talc multidistrict litigation conveniently ignore causation evidence to the contrary and overinflate the science, and it is the court’s job as gatekeeper to ensure that such unreliable testimony does not reach the jury, Johnson & Johnson defendants tell a federal court in New Jersey in a motion to exclude general causation opinions.
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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
Man Drops Reliance On Expert Moline’s 2023 Asbestos-Talc Study
NEW YORK — A man pursuing a mesothelioma action against American International Industries (AII) told a New York federal court in a letter that he would withdraw reliance on expert Jacqueline Moline’s 2023 article titled “Exposure to Cosmetic Talc and Mesothelioma” and requested that the related pending motions and discovery requests be denied.
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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 22, 2024
Decades-Old MOU Is Focus Of Lawsuit Over Reinsurance Billings Dispute
LOS ANGELES — Suing two English reinsurers in a California court in a dispute over “millions” in reinsurance billings arising from asbestos bodily injury claims, an insurer alleges that an incorrect interpretation of a 1984 memorandum of understanding (MOU) is at the root of their refusal to pay.
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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
Questions Of Fact Remain In Asbestos Bodily Injury Coverage Suit, Judge Says
ROME, Ga. — A Georgia federal judge denied an insured’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in a suit seeking a declaration that coverage is owed for an underlying asbestos bodily injury suit after determining that questions of fact exist regarding whether asbestos exclusions apply as a bar to coverage and whether the underlying plaintiff’s injuries were caused by asbestos in the insured’s talc products.
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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 16, 2024
Asbestos Verdicts & Settlements: January 2023 – December 2023
Every year, Mealey’s Litigation Report: Asbestos compiles, analyzes and reports on verdict information appearing in the report from the previous calendar year. The following report contains that information.
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July 16, 2024
Plaintiff/Defense Experts Testifying Since Jan. 1, 2002
The following is a listing of plaintiff and defense experts who testified in trials covered by Mealey's Litigation Report: Asbestos since Jan. 1, 2002.