Mealey's Asbestos
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August 07, 2024
J&J Tells 3rd Circuit Asbestos-Talc Securities Class ‘Reverse-Engineered’ Case
PHILADELPHIA — An asbestos-talc securities class produced none of the type of new and corrective disclosures required for class certification and instead “reverse-engineered” their case by working backward from price drops and identifying media reports and verdicts supporting the case, Johnson & Johnson and its executives told the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in urging reversal of class certification.
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August 06, 2024
Beasley Allen Says Evidence Doesn’t Support J&J Disqualification Effort
TRENTON, N.J. — The unrebutted evidence shows that a former lawyer never divulged privileged information, paving the way for a federal court to adopt a state judge’s ruling that there is no grounds for disqualifying a law firm in the multidistrict asbestos-talc litigation, the firm says in a Aug. 5 response.
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August 06, 2024
Claims Against Defendant Insurer Alleged Owed $28.9M Are Dismissed By Stipulation
OMAHA, Neb. — Claims against one of what had been four remaining defendants in a suit National Indemnity Co. (NICO) filed over a $157.2 million settlement it reached with Montana regarding alleged asbestos exposures have been dismissed with prejudice under a joint stipulation that a Nebraska federal judge granted.
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August 06, 2024
Justice: Asbestos Suit Against Dissolved Artificial Snow Company Timely
WATERTOWN, N.Y. — An artificial snow company that was dissolved under Wisconsin law must face a New York asbestos suit because New York law focuses on when an action was filed, which happened before the closing of the window for suing the company, a New York justice held Aug. 5.
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August 05, 2024
Judge Stays Libby, Mont., Asbestos Trust Suit Pending Bankruptcy Court Ruling
MISSOULA, Mont. — A federal judge overseeing a pair of asbestos exposure suits brought by Libby, Mont., residents granted a motion to stay their cases against the WRG Asbestos Personal Injury trust Aug. 2 so that the bankruptcy court can determine whether the claims are viable.
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August 05, 2024
Magistrate Judge Rejects Immunity, Contractor Defense In Helicopter Asbestos Case
WILMINGTON, Del. — Two helicopter defendants saw different results in an asbestos case, with a magistrate judge on Aug. 2 recommending that one be dismissed but leaving claims against the second, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., after criticizing its filing but concluding that a widow’s case against it survives because the evidence suggests that it knew that its aircraft contained asbestos and that the federal contractor defense and derivative sovereign immunity would not bar the claims.
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August 05, 2024
Dismissal Bid Will Go To 7th Circuit Panel In Arbitration Estoppel Row
CHICAGO — Without explanation, a Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judge has ordered a dismissal motion that is based on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling to be taken with reinsurers’ fully briefed appeal concerning the effects of prior arbitration involving asbestos-related liabilities.
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August 02, 2024
Talc Defendant Says Moline Study Exit Raises Subpoena’s Importance
RICHMOND, Va. — A plaintiff’s complete abandonment of any articles by expert Jacqueline Moline leaves only a study by Theresa Emory that serves only to increase the importance of a subpoena seeking evidence about the study, asbestos-talc defendant American International Industries told the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a letter brief.
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August 02, 2024
Employer, Amicus Urge Kentucky High Court To Reject Take-Home Asbestos Liability
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — An electric products company told the Kentucky Supreme Court that it owed no duty a woman allegedly exposed to asbestos on her father’s work clothing because such an injury was not foreseeable and that the woman’s own employment with the company precludes a tort action under the state’s workers’ compensation law. In an amicus brief, various business interests argued that there are sound public policy and scientific grounds to rejecting take-home asbestos liability.
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August 01, 2024
Mesothelioma Sufferer Asks Court To Dismiss Lone Remaining Talc Defendant
NEW YORK — A 42-year-old man suffering from mesothelioma that he believes resulted from asbestos in talc applied to him as a child asked a New York federal judge on July 31 to dismiss with prejudice a contentious action involving the lone remaining defendant, American International Industries (AII), so he can enjoy his remaining years free from its “improper and harassing discovery.”
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August 01, 2024
Take-Home Duty At Heart Of Briefing In Appeal Of $9.7M Asbestos Verdict
MILWAUKEE — Parties wrapped up briefing on the propriety of a $9.7 million asbestos verdict, with a premises owner telling a Wisconsin appeals court that the state doesn’t recognize take-home exposure claims and warning about the burden such liability could impose while the plaintiff argues that nothing prevented the trial court from allowing liability for taking no action to prevent known or knowable dangers.
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July 30, 2024
Special Master Says Medical Talc Asbestos Case Should Proceed
WOBURN, Mass. — Sufficient evidence exists indicating that the powder used in talc pleurodesis medical procedures a man underwent contained asbestos and that the talc supplier’s internal testing methods fell short, a special master in Massachusetts said July 29 in recommending denying a motion for summary judgment by the company.
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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.