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August 19, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — A Virginia federal judge on Aug. 18 confirmed a plan of reorganization for defunct ship subcontractor and Chapter 11 debtor Hopeman Brothers Inc. that establishes an asbestos personal injury trust that will be funded by nearly $50 million from the company’s insurers and by the debtor’s remaining assets.
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August 19, 2026
MISSOULA, Mont. — BNSF Railway Co. asked a federal judge in Montana for summary judgment in a Libby, Mont., asbestos case or for certification of an interlocutory appeal of the liability questions in the case, while in opposing the motion, the plaintiff claims that courts already decided many of the issues surrounding the company’s conduct in the town and that the motion improperly attempts to relitigate those issues.
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August 19, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals should reverse a North Carolina federal bankruptcy court’s denial of relief from the automatic stay in the Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific spinoff Bestwall LLC sought by the executor of the estate of a mesothelioma victim because the debtor’s “Texas Two-Step” bankruptcy was filed in bad faith, the executor says in her opening appellant brief.
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August 18, 2026
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — A federal judge in Illinois granted expedited third-party discovery from asbestos trusts in a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) case in the wake of a Delaware Supreme Court ruling allowing the trusts to implement new document retention policies.
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August 18, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court has distributed for its Sept. 28 conference a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the estates of two mesothelioma victims seeking review of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ reversal of an $8 million combined judgment for the estates against the railroad company that hauled asbestos-tainted vermiculite from W.R. Grace & Co.’s mine in Libby, Mont.
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August 17, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — Former valve maker and current Chapter 11 debtor Valves and Controls US Inc. has asked a Delaware federal bankruptcy judge to give it another month to file an amended plan of liquidation after it had to withdraw its original plan due to a lack of agreement with an asbestos claimants committee on the plan’s proposed asbestos trust.
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August 12, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — A federal bankruptcy judge in Virginia has denied an insurer’s motion to modify a 2024 mediation order to allow the insurer to use documents produced by Hopeman Brothers Inc. during mediation in connection with the prosecution of its claim in Hopeman’s Chapter 11 case, finding that the requested relief conflicts with a local bankruptcy rule and that the insurer “failed to provide a compelling legal or factual basis for this Court to impinge upon a confidential judicial mediation.”
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August 11, 2026
LOCKPORT, N.Y. — A New York justice found store-brand talc company Vi-Jon LLC in default after a bench trial and awarded a couple $16,750,487, according to documents filed in the Niagara County Supreme Court. Vi-Jon declared bankruptcy less than a month later.
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August 11, 2026
COLUMBIA, S.C. — In a report to the South Carolina Supreme Court, the justice overseeing asbestos litigation in the state tells the court that a lawyer’s allegations that his clients were not present for mediation “is totally untrue.”
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August 06, 2026
NEW YORK — Stating that an insurance exchange “should not be permitted to escape the economic consequences of its conduct,” a group of intervening reinsurers asked a New York federal court to award approximately $2 million in attorney fees and costs arising from the exchange’s failed attempt to disqualify an attorney who previously represented the exchange from serving as the reinsurers’ party-appointed arbitrator in a reinsurance dispute, contending that the exchange violated a hold-harmless agreement in which it promised not to sue the arbitrator.
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August 06, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — Vi-Jon LLC, which makes private-label bath products such as Epsom salts and body powder, has filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 in a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, seeking to resolve talc-related claims against it through the establishment of a $25 million trust.
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August 05, 2026
NEWARK, N.J. — Just days after Uniroyal Holding Inc. and an affiliate filed voluntary petitions for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing more than 35,000 pending asbestos injury cases, a federal bankruptcy judge in New Jersey on Aug. 4 scheduled a hearing for Sept. 10 to consider the company’s disclosure statement.
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August 04, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — Repeat litigants in asbestos litigation have not identified a sufficiently specific or anticipated claim under which a court can require asbestos bankruptcy trusts to preserve claims data under an equitable bill of discovery, the Delaware Supreme Court said in reversing and remanding for dismissal of the action.
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July 30, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — Pecos River Talc LLC and two other Johnson & Johnson entities told a federal judge in New Jersey that federal law preempts expert Jacqueline Moline’s anti-Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation counterclaim against them and that their case claiming that she made fraudulent allegations about the use of talc and mesothelioma doesn’t target her speech but her allegedly false allegations.
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July 30, 2026
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — The trustee of the Nash Engineering Co. asbestos-related bankruptcy on July 23 opposed a motion to stay a court’s ruling awarding him $57.4 million as a prejudgment remedy, telling a federal judge in Connecticut that the defendants are simply attempting to evade responsibility that is well explained in the decision.
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July 30, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — In a pair of briefs, the United States and the state of Montana voiced approval of a settlement in the Whittaker, Clark & Daniels Inc. (WCD) asbestos-related bankruptcies in the federal bankruptcy court in New Jersey that would, among other things, convey the Lockwood Solvent Superfund Site to a trust benefiting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Montana, saying the agreement serves the public interest and furthers the goals of federal law governing environmental remediation.
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July 30, 2026
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — An order denying certification of a direct appeal to a circuit court does not short-circuit an attempt to appeal a privilege ruling to a district court and actually reinforces the need for such an appeal, DBMP LLC and related entities tell a federal judge in North Carolina in response to a notice of supplemental authority by the claimants.
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July 29, 2026
NEW YORK — Writing that “the only appropriate remedy is dismissal,” a New York federal judge dismissed with prejudice an insurance exchange’s suit seeking to disqualify a reinsurer-appointed arbitrator based on his prior representation, ruling that a hold-harmless agreement barred the insurance exchange from bringing the lawsuit against the appointed arbitrator and a group of reinsurers.
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July 28, 2026
HOUSTON — The bankruptcy involving the company formerly known as Barretts Minerals Inc. will be on hold while a district court judge decides whether the company’s talc contained asbestos, a bankruptcy judge in Texas said in an order abating the remaining activity in the case.
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July 28, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — Johnson & Johnson on July 27 announced an agreement in which the company would pay $5.5 billion to resolve the multidistrict ovarian cancer talc litigation and related state proceedings, saying in a press release that the agreement covers some 76,000 claims.
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July 28, 2026
SEATTLE — A former Washington pulp mill owner declared bankruptcy, just weeks after a jury in the state awarded an asbestos abatement worker exposed outside of his work area at the mill’s facility $20.9 million. The liable defendant, Simpson Tacoma Kraft Co., filed for bankruptcy in May and recently sought to employ a chief restructuring officer.
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July 28, 2026
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Companies challenging the Cape PLC receivership in South Carolina told the state high court in a pair of petitions for rehearing that the court misinterpreted the ruling appointing a receiver and argued that affirming the ruling created a constitutional conflict by allowing a state court to exercise control over a foreign company without jurisdiction. In a pair of letters filed in the case, two attorneys debated the conduct of a second company over which a receiver was appointed, Asbestos Corporation Limited.
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July 24, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — Ovarian cancer plaintiffs in the federal multidistrict litigation must show why all of the cases in the action should not be dismissed for failure to produce admissible expert specific causation testimony, a magistrate judge said in an order to show cause.
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July 13, 2026
CHICAGO — The majority of an Illinois appeals court on July 10 affirmed a $45 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson entities, turning away challenges that the award of prejudgment interest was unconstitutional, that the handling of testimony from three witnesses was improper and that damages for a shortened life expectancy could be awarded on a survival claim.
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June 26, 2026
MISSOULA, Mont. — BNSF Railway Co. has appealed a federal judge’s order remanding 216 Libby, Mont., asbestos cases that were consolidated for the limited purpose of remand, and in a separate development the judge denied as moot the defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings.