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May 21, 2026
HOUSTON — A second round of mediation has begun in the Chapter 11 case of asbestos talc debtor BMI Oldco Inc. in an attempt to reach a global resolution on a consensual plan of reorganization after the company and its Special Committee told a Texas federal bankruptcy judge that negotiations had stalled and that “a judicial mediation to close the gap among the parties” was needed.
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May 13, 2026
By Mary Margaret Gay, Sarah Beth Jones and Tricia Richardson
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May 12, 2026
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — An asbestos claimant has appealed a North Carolina federal judge’s ruling denying her request for relief from the automatic stay in the Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific spinoff Bestwall LLC, telling the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a May 11 docketing statement that the appeal involves a question of first impression.
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May 12, 2026
MIAMI — A judge in Florida revoked the pro hac vice status of attorneys from Beasley Allen Law Firm in a Florida asbestos-talc case that is headed back to a jury after the first trial ended in a hung jury after a day and a half of deliberations about Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) liability for a woman’s ovarian cancer.
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May 12, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California judge entered an amended judgment of $40,126,125.19 in the first of the state’s bellwether asbestos-talc ovarian cancer cases after rejecting posttrial challenges to the verdict based on alleged jury misconduct, instructional error and the court’s failure to exclude a plaintiffs’ law firm from the case.
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May 11, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — The Delaware Supreme Court will decide in the coming months whether asbestos bankruptcy trusts must face a suit challenging document retention policies after hearing oral arguments pitting a claim that repeat litigants cannot hope to secure unlimited document preservation from a third party against the claim that an equitable bill allows for such preservation in the unique asbestos litigation setting.
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May 08, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge granted partial summary judgment to a man who suffers from asbestos-related injuries in his suit against the shipyard where he worked, as well as multiple entities, including the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association (LIGA), finding “no reason to diverge” from prior decisions in the same court precluding the shipyard from “raising a government contractor defense” as to failure-to-warn and asbestos spread claims.
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May 06, 2026
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Asbestos claimants in the new Chapter 11 case of talc producer Vanderbilt Minerals LLC filed three appeals, the most recent on May 5, of a New York federal bankruptcy judge’s approval of a global settlement among the debtor and its affiliates resolving intercompany claims by the affiliates in exchange for the transfer of certain assets to the debtor, including a manufacturing plant in Kentucky and a mine in Arizona.
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May 05, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — There is no need for the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ affirmance of a ruling denying dismissal of the Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific spinoff Bestwall LLC because the asbestos claimants challenging the decision present issues that were not decided by the appellate court, Bestwall says in its brief in opposition.
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May 01, 2026
SEATTLE — A Washington state statute of repose covers a subcontractor’s work installing insulation at an oil refinery, but a plaintiff can still pursue a negligence claim for the subcontractor’s sale of the asbestos-containing insulation that was used at the refinery, a divided Washington Supreme Court said April 30.
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April 30, 2026
HOUSTON — Cosmetics ingredients producer Miyoshi America Inc. has filed a Chapter 11 petition and a prepackaged plan of reorganization that establishes a $20 million asbestos trust in Texas federal bankruptcy court, saying more than 99% of holders of talc personal injury claims voted to accept the plan in prepetition balloting.
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April 30, 2026
BALTIMORE — A household member who suffers an injury from exposure to asbestos brought home on work clothing qualifies as a bystander, and state law does not impose a duty element for a strict liability claim, the Maryland Supreme Court said in answering a certified question from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
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April 30, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. —The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a request by asbestos claimants for rehearing en banc of a split panel’s decision affirming a North Carolina federal bankruptcy judge’s denial of the claimants’ request to lift the automatic stay in the Chapter 11 case of CertainTeed spinoff DBMP LLC so they could proceed with their state court lawsuits against CertainTeed and nondebtor affiliates.
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April 28, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — A Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on April 27 granted a rehearing petition filed by asbestos claimants and amended its opinion affirming a New Jersey federal bankruptcy judge’s denial of a bid by the claimants to dismiss the Chapter 11 case of defunct talc supplier Whittaker, Clark & Daniels Inc., though the outcome of the Official Committee of Talc Claimants’ appeal remains the same: the dismissal denial is affirmed.
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April 28, 2026
CHICAGO — A jury in Illinois returned a defense verdict for Merck & Co. Inc. in what sources told Mealey Publications is the first asbestos-talc case to go to verdict in which the defendant primarily argued that the mesothelioma in question was the result of an inherited genetic mutation.
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April 23, 2026
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — Routine law firm activities such as prosecuting personal injury cases and rewarding attorneys for successful outcomes cannot form the basis for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) claims, The Gori Law Firm and several individual defendants told a federal judge in Illinois in seeking to dismiss the suit against them.
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April 23, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Reorganized Chapter 11 asbestos talc debtor Ben Nye Co. Inc., a family-run cosmetics business whose founder gained fame through his work on motion pictures, received an order of discharge from a federal bankruptcy court in California.
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April 22, 2026
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A defense verdict in which an employer raised the workers’ compensation exclusivity defense stands after a Missouri appellate court on April 21 denied reconsideration of its ruling affirming the jury and declined a request to transfer the case to the state’s top court for the second time.
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April 22, 2026
PORTLAND, Ore. — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals entered its mandate after declining to rehear its reversal of an $8 million combined judgment for the estates of two mesothelioma victims and directing the trial court to enter judgment for the defendant railroad company, which hauled asbestos-tainted vermiculite from a mine in Libby, Mont.
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April 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court should put an end to the “Texas Two-Step,” under which large corporations use the Lone Star State’s divisional merger laws to create an affiliate, transfer all of the company’s asbestos liabilities to the spinoff and then have the debt-laden new company file for bankruptcy protection, asbestos creditor committees in two such bankruptcy cases tell the court in an amicus curiae brief in support of a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the claimant committee in the Texas Two-Step Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific spinoff Bestwall LLC.
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April 10, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — A woman asserting an asbestos personal injury claim against a defunct gasket company failed to prove that the company’s certificate of cancellation should be nullified due to an improper dissolution, a Delaware vice chancellor ruled.
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April 06, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A former Hollywood cameraman and a theatrical lighting company settled prior to the punitive damages phase of an asbestos trial after a California jury found that the company acted with malice and awarded more than $33 million in pain and suffering damages.
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April 06, 2026
NEW YORK — Dueling medical and industrial hygiene experts create genuine issues about whether a company’s talc could have contained asbestos levels sufficient to cause a man’s mesothelioma, a New York justice said in denying a motion for summary judgment.
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April 03, 2026
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict was not required to preserve a challenge to a workers’ compensation exclusivity defense in an asbestos case, and the court’s reliance on precedent to reach a contrary conclusion warrants reconsideration or transfer to the Missouri Supreme Court, a woman whose case has already been to the state’s top court once argues.
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April 01, 2026
AUSTIN, Texas — In a letter to the Texas Supreme Court, a family urges the justices to issue an opinion on the proper causation standard in asbestosis cases during the current term, noting that the parties completed merits briefing in January 2025, before any of the other cases on the court’s docket, and that prompt resolution would ensure that an aged man suffering from the disease can have his day in court.