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Mealey's Asbestos

  • April 18, 2025

    Asbestos Tort Targets Ask Delaware Court To Enjoin Trust Document Destruction

    WILMINGTON, Del. — A CertainTeed LLC affiliate and various Johnson & Johnson entities asked a Delaware judge to enjoin the destruction of asbestos bankruptcy trust documents they say are relevant to current and future cases.  In the wake of the motion the Delaware Chancery Court on April 17 set a hearing on a motion to expedite consideration.

  • April 18, 2025

    California Supreme Court Grants Motion To Dismiss Genetic Testing Petition

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Supreme Court on April 17 granted an unopposed motion to dismiss a petition for review contending that a trial court improperly evaluated a motion to conduct simple and potentially conclusive genetic testing in a mesothelioma sufferer’s asbestos case under the standard for admissibility when it should have done so under the standard for relevance.

  • April 18, 2025

    Pipe Maker: ‘Insider’ Evidence Shows Asbestos Trust Fraud, Attorney Bounty Programs

    CHICAGO — Newly revealed “insider” evidence of fraudulent claims, bounty programs, obstruction of justice and efforts at defrauding asbestos bankruptcy trusts warrants amending a judgment dismissing Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) claims against a law firm and attorneys, pipe manufacturer J-M Manufacturing Co. Inc. told a federal judge in Illinois.

  • April 18, 2025

    Evidence, Expert Rulings, Led To $18M Asbestos Verdict, Brake Machine Firm Says

    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida circuit court judge’s improper admission of an unauthenticated video the plaintiff found online titled “Don’t Blow It” that included references to uncited studies and articles by actors and was hearsay, and other rulings involving experts, jury instructions and attempts to cure comments made during closing arguments led to an $18 million asbestos verdict, a brake grinding machine manufacturer tells the court in a motion for a new trial. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.

  • April 18, 2025

    Judge Dismisses Cosmetics Firm From Asbestos-Talc Suit, Won’t Sanction Plaintiff

    NEW YORK — While ultimately unsuccessful, a woman’s attempt to link one company under the umbrella of others through evidence recently revealed in an asbestos bankruptcy gives at least some grounds for adding an otherwise untimely defendant, a New York justice said in granting one defendant’s motion to dismiss but denying sanctions.

  • April 17, 2025

    Appeal Of Joint Compound Asbestos Suit Withdrawn After Parties’ Stipulation

    NEW YORK — A New York appellate court withdrew an appeal challenging denial of summary judgment in a dispute over exposure to asbestos fibers in joint compound after the parties filed a stipulation with the court.

  • April 17, 2025

    Beasley Allen Firm Says Stay Of Discovery Impedes Talc-Funding Case

    JACKSON, Miss. — Staying discovery into relevant evidence of litigation funding threatens the completeness of an amended complaint that must be filed in less than a month, an asbestos-talc law firm says in a motion for reconsideration.

  • April 15, 2025

    Settled Asbestos Defendant Blames Dilatory Resolution On Insurer’s Conduct Alone

    NEW ORLEANS — An insurer misinterpreted and misrepresented the provisions of its own policy and the insurer’s actions delayed payment after a settlement in an asbestos case and it should not be rewarded for such bad faith conduct, an insured told a federal judge in Louisiana on April 14 in seeking to add a crossclaim for penalties and attorney fees.

  • April 15, 2025

    Judge Won’t Exclude Latest EPA Asbestos Ban Attempt From Trial

    OAKLAND, Calif. — The government’s most recent attempt at banning asbestos may be used to cross examine and impeach witnesses as it likely goes to the awareness of the dangers of asbestos, but an overturned 1989 rule may not be used as it would only serve to confuse the jury, a judge in California said in a tentative ruling.

  • April 15, 2025

    Nonparty Hospital Operator Wants Rule 45 Sanction Ruling In Dismissed Asbestos Case

    NEW YORK — An asbestos case’s dismissal with prejudice does not strip a federal court in New York of jurisdiction over a motion seeking attorney fees as a sanction for repeated subpoenas and litigation against a third party, a hospital operator tells the court in a motion for sanctions against a defendant company.

  • April 14, 2025

    Attorneys General Urge Asbestos Trusts To Hold Off On Claim Document Destruction

    Attorneys general from 15 states in an April 11 letter to 10 asbestos bankruptcy trusts express their concern that the trusts’ document retention policies would result in the destruction of data detailing compensation payments and other documents about past claims that could be discoverable and relevant to ongoing and future litigation.

  • April 10, 2025

    Parties To Revived Consumer Talc MDL Brief Judge On Open Issues

    TRENTON, N.J. — After a judge dismissed Johnson & Johnson’s third attempt at resolving asbestos-talc claims through a spinoff company’s bankruptcy, parties in a talc multidistrict litigation that was stayed during the bankruptcy proceeding filed a joint status report outlining the pending issues in the MDL.

  • April 10, 2025

    Asbestos Ban Rule Stay Remains In Place, 5th Circuit Says

    NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals declined to reconsider its decision imposing a 120-day stay of various challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency’s ban on the use of chrysotile asbestos while the government determines what steps it must take to comply with an executive order requiring review of all rules issued in the past four years.

  • April 09, 2025

    4th Circuit Wants Response To Motion To Dismiss Expert Subpoena Appeal

    RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals asked for a response to a motion to dismiss an appeal of a ruling quashing a subpoena targeting an asbestos expert after the target of that subpoena said dismissal of the underlying action mooted the issue.

  • April 08, 2025

    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.

  • April 03, 2025

    COMMENTARY: “Standing” On the Bow: The Right Of Non-Dependent Relatives In Asbestos Litigation To Pursue Death Actions Under General Maritime Law

    By Brian J. Schneider

  • April 07, 2025

    Asbestos Database Copying Violated Law, Massachusetts Appeals Court Says

    BOSTON — Lawyers’ copying of database organizational structure used to organize and help defend multiple asbestos defendants at once goes beyond the type of transfer of client records required by state law, and the use of the material to compete against their former firm constitutes unfair conduct, a Massachusetts appeals court said April 4 in remanding for a calculation of damages.

  • April 07, 2025

    Plaintiffs Lay Out Witness Timeline After Remand Of Asbestos Case

    LOS ANGELES — Plaintiffs tell a federal judge in California that they were mistaken about when they sought out and identified co-workers after the judge questioned the timing in a ruling finding that a stipulation eliminating liability arising from government work and government contractor and immunity defenses stripped the case of federal jurisdiction and that the action’s complexity warranted remanding it to a Los Angeles County court.

  • April 04, 2025

    Receiver Finds Dissolved Asbestos Defendant Reinz Has Remaining Insurance Assets

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Dissolved asbestos defendant Reinz Wisconsin Gasket LLC likely has litigable insurance and breach of fiduciary duty claims that constitute remaining assets, a receiver appointed by a Delaware state court said in his final report.

  • April 04, 2025

    J&J Fraudulent Transfer Case Back On After Bankruptcy Dismissal

    TRENTON, N.J. — A federal judge in New Jersey entered a docket-only order on April 3 lifting a stay in the wake of the dismissal of the Chapter 11 case of Johnson & Johnson spinoff Red River Talc LLC and ordered parties in a class action accusing Johnson & Johnson of fraudulent transfers in an attempt to hide consumer talc liabilities to meet and confer and file a joint status report.

  • April 04, 2025

    Judge Lifts Stay Of Consumer Talc Medical Monitoring Class

    TRENTON, N.J. — A consumer talc medical monitoring class action will resume after a federal judge in New Jersey in an April 3 docket order lifted a stay in the wake of the dismissal of Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Red River Talc LLC’s bankruptcy case.

  • April 03, 2025

    Delaware Judge Grants Asbestos Plaintiffs’ Petition For Walworth Receiver

    WILMINGTON, Del. — A judge in Delaware appointed a receiver over former valve and fitting company The Walworth Co. after a couple said discovery in their New York asbestos suit suggests that the now defunct entity could be liable for the man’s mesothelioma and at one time had nearly $200 million in insurance assets available.

  • April 03, 2025

    Volkswagen’s Indirect Contacts With California Keep It In Asbestos Suit

    SAN FRANCISCO — A foreign automaker’s creation of and control over an entity specifically designed to target the U.S. market, including sales and operations in California, suffice to create jurisdiction in the state, a California appeals court said in an unpublished opinion reversing a trial court’s decision to quash service of summons for lack of personal jurisdiction.

  • April 02, 2025

    Defendants Push Back On Consolidating Shotgun Shell Asbestos Case

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Defendants in two asbestos cases alleging exposure from shotgun shells pushed back on the concept that consolidated trial would improve judicial efficiency, telling a Delaware court that it is a “misconception” that consolidated trials are the normal practice and that in this instance doing so would serve only to confuse the jury.

  • April 02, 2025

    Japanese Auto Parts Company Must Face Asbestos Suit, California Court Says

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Japanese friction parts company’s sales to California companies through related entities put it on notice that it could be sued in the state and those contacts suffice to create jurisdiction, a California appellate panel said in reversing a motion to dismiss.