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

Mealey's Asbestos Bankruptcy

November 19, 2024
Compelling Arbitration, Judge Says MOU Is ‘Closely Related’ To Reinsurance Contract

LOS ANGELES — Concluding that a 1984 memorandum of understanding (MOU) is “closely related to the reinsurance contract and not a completely separate agreement,” a California federal judge granted reinsurers’ motion to compel arbitration in a lawsuit over reinsurance billings arising from asbestos bodily injury claims.
November 18, 2024
Delaware Judge Won’t Modify Receivership Over Asbestos Company

WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware judge declined to modify a receivership to permit the marshalling of a dissolved company’s assets and defense of asbestos claims in four cases spread out over three states after an insurance company argued that the modification would skip procedures already put in place and essentially grant the relief sought by the original petition.
November 04, 2024
COMMENTARY: Lady Justice May Be Blind, But Her Courts Aren’t: Gender Bias And Barriers To Representation For Female Plaintiffs

By Sophie Zavaglia
November 14, 2024
Revlon Talc Claimants’ Direct Appeal Request Debated In 2nd Circuit

NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals should reject a petition for a direct appeal of a New York federal bankruptcy judge’s decision barring asbestos talc plaintiffs from pursuing claims against former debtor Revlon Inc. under the discharge and injunction provisions of its confirmed Chapter 11 plan of reorganization and instead send the dispute to a district court to review the questions presented “in the first instance,” the reorganized debtor says in an opposition brief.
November 14, 2024
Oregon Judge Finds $200M Punitive Damages Constitutional In Asbestos Case

PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon judge declined to reduce or vacate $200 million in punitive damages awarded in an asbestos-talc case against Johnson & Johnson, saying the jury’s $60 million in noneconomic damages supports finding that the award passes constitutional muster.
November 13, 2024
More Than 150 People Sue Cape Entities Over Asbestos Scheme

COLUMBIA, S.C. — More than 150 individuals with various types of asbestos exposure filed a negligence and product liability suit in South Carolina against mining giant Cape PLC and its various subsidiaries on Nov. 12 for allegedly operating a scheme to sell asbestos in the United States with the knowledge that doing so would kill or injure tens of thousands of people while relying on a “byzantine web” of interrelated entities to escape liability for the conduct.
November 13, 2024
Restrictions Granted In Asbestos Coverage Dispute Involving Liquidated Insurer

OMAHA, Neb. — In docket-only orders, a Nebraska federal magistrate judge granted motions to restrict access to certain documents by National Indemnity Co. (NICO) and Horace Mann Insurance Co., including briefs related to summary judgment motions, in NICO’s suit seeking to enforce obligations by multiple insurers, one of whom is now insolvent, for the liability NICO incurred related to claims for asbestos exposure.
November 12, 2024
Kentucky Panel Reverses Workers’ Comp Ruling In Asbestos Coverage Dispute

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed a decision by the Kentucky Workers’ Compensation Board and instructed the board to remand the dispute to an administrative law judge to determine which of two insurers should provide coverage to a workers’ compensation claimant who developed mesothelioma as a result of asbestos exposure while working at a Kentucky high school that contained asbestos.
November 08, 2024
Disclosure Statements For Asbestos Talc Debtors Imerys, Cyprus Mines Approved

WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware federal bankruptcy judge approved the disclosure statements for the reorganization plans of affiliated Chapter 11 asbestos talc debtors Imerys Talc America Inc. and Cyprus Mines Corp., overruling objections to the statements by a claimants’ law firm and the U.S. trustee and setting a date for the plans’ confirmation hearing.
November 08, 2024
La. Panel Vacates Order For Lack Of Admissibility Ruling In Asbestos Coverage Row

BATON ROUGE, La. — A Louisiana appellate panel vacated and remanded a lower court ruling that denied a motion for summary judgment filed by a company that purportedly used asbestos-containing products in an asbestos liability suit filed against it and multiple defendants, including a now-insolvent insurer, finding that the lower court incorrectly denied summary judgment to the company without ruling on the parties’ objections to the evidence.
November 05, 2024
Validity Of Kaiser’s Bankruptcy Plan Debated On Remand From Supreme Court

RICHMOND, Va. — Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that the primary insurer of Chapter 11 asbestos debtors Kaiser Gypsum Co. Inc. and Hanson Permanente Cement Inc. has standing to object to the debtors’ reorganization plan, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals should uphold the insurer’s merits arguments and reverse confirmation of the plan, the insurer says in its Nov. 4 supplemental reply brief on remand from the high court.
November 05, 2024
Judge Stays J&J Effort To Remove Counsel From Talc MDL

TRENTON, N.J. — The effort to disqualify and remove the Beasley Allen law firm from the talc multidistrict litigation steering committee is on hold after a federal judge in New Jersey stayed the effort in the wake of a ruling by the judge overseeing a J&J entity’s bankruptcy saying the automatic stay should apply.
November 04, 2024
Reorganizing In Face Of Asbestos Claims Is Valid Goal, Georgia-Pacific Spinoff Says

RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals should affirm a bankruptcy court’s denial of a “belated and meritless” motion to dismiss the Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific spinoff Bestwall LLC by the Official Committee of Asbestos Claimants because Bestwall has “a valid reorganizational purpose” and “sufficient financial distress” to pursue relief in good faith under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the debtor says in a Nov. 1 response brief.
November 01, 2024
California Panel Upends Auto Shop Owner’s $10.1M Asbestos Verdict

SAN FRANCISCO — A trial court overseeing an asbestos case that produced a $10.1 million verdict erred in issuing a directed verdict on the sophisticated user defense in the case of an automobile shop owner and by failing to list certain potentially liable parties on the verdict sheet, a California appeals court panel said in reversing and remanding for a new trial.
November 01, 2024
Asbestos Bankruptcy Claimants Take Stay Relief Denial Ruling To 4th Circuit

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —A federal judge in North Carolina affirmed a bankruptcy court’s decision not to lift the automatic stay for two asbestos cases, agreeing that allowing the cases to proceed in state court could threaten the DBMP LLC bankruptcy process. The claimants filed a notice of appeal to the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in the wake of the ruling.
October 31, 2024
California Jury Finds For Asbestos Defendant In Friction Products Case

LOS ANGELES — A California jury returned a defense verdict in a friction case against a company accused of assembling asbestos-containing brakes, finding that while the company sold such products, they performed as expected and their benefits outweighed the risks.
October 30, 2024
Arbitration Bid Fought In Reinsurance Billing Row Involving MOU

LOS ANGELES — Urging a California federal court to reject an arbitration bid in a lawsuit over reinsurance billings arising from asbestos bodily injury claims, an insurer contends that the abstention doctrine doesn’t apply and that the arbitration clause is in a different agreement than the one at issue and doesn’t include the present billing dispute.
October 29, 2024
Day-Late Filing In Asbestos Trust Suit Rejected By Delaware Top Court

WILMINGTON, Del. — An appeal filed a day late prevents jurisdiction over the case, a defect that cannot be remedied, the Delaware Supreme Court said in dismissing an appeal from a ruling finding that the statute of limitations on a man’s asbestos case began at the time of his autopsy and barred a case against a bankruptcy trust.
October 28, 2024
New York Jury Awards $600,000 In Mechanic’s Mesothelioma Case

NEW YORK — A New York jury awarded $300,000 each for past and future pain and suffering experienced by a former automobile mechanic with mesothelioma but declined to award any punitive damages against defendant North American Honda Motor Co. Inc., sources told Mealey Publications.
October 28, 2024
J&J’s Latest Debtor Opposes Claimant’s Counsel’s Bid For Venue Reconsideration

HOUSTON — A request by certain asbestos talc claimants’ counsel for reconsideration of an order denying their motion to transfer venue for the Chapter 11 case of the latest Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff, Red River Talc LLC, should be denied because it is based on “the blatantly false allegation” that the debtor and J&J’s previous debtor are the “same entity,” Red River says in an Oct. 25 objection filed in Texas federal bankruptcy court.
October 23, 2024
Receiver, Talc Claimants Seek 3rd Circuit Reversal Of Chapter 11 Dismissal Denial

PHILADELPHIA — The board of directors of defunct talc supplier Whittaker, Clark & Daniels Inc. (WCD) had no authority to place the company into bankruptcy because its court-appointed receiver has “exclusive authority to manage WCD’s affairs,” the receiver and a committee of asbestos claimants tell the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a consolidated appeal of a New Jersey federal bankruptcy judge’s denial of the receiver’s bid to dismiss the company’s Chapter 11 case.
October 22, 2024
Georgia-Pacific Spinoff’s Committee Gets Amici Backing In Effort To Dismiss Case

RICHMOND, Va. — The Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific spinoff Bestwall LLC should be dismissed because the protections of bankruptcy are not intended for companies that are not in financial distress, and the civil justice system is well prepared to handle mass tort litigation for asbestos claims when an asbestos trust is not the proper vehicle to handle the claims, as Bestwall asserts, the American Association for Justice and an ad hoc group of other asbestos claimants tell the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in amicus curiae briefs in support of the Official Committee of Asbestos Claimants.
October 22, 2024
Asbestos Claimants Appeal Plan Confirmation For Cosmetics Company Ben Nye

SAN FRANCISCO — Asbestos plaintiffs and law firms appealed the confirmation of the Chapter 11 Subchapter V plan of reorganization for family-run cosmetics company Ben Nye Co. Inc. to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP), along with the bankruptcy court’s approval of a bar date for filing proofs of claim for asbestos personal injury claims.
October 22, 2024
Virginia Jury Awards $3.45 Million In Millwright Mesothelioma Case

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A Virginia jury awarded the widow of a former millwright who developed fatal mesothelioma after occupational asbestos exposure $3.5 million in her case against John Crane Inc., sources told Mealey Publications.
October 21, 2024
Reinsurers Move To Compel Arbitration In Billings Dispute Involving MOU

LOS ANGELES — Arguing that a dispute over reinsurance billings arising from asbestos bodily injury claims falls within the scope of the “broad” arbitration agreement in the excess of loss reinsurance treaty at issue, reinsurers in an Oct. 18 motion ask a California federal court to compel arbitration and dismiss or stay the case.