Mealey's Asbestos
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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Appeal Of Joint Compound Asbestos Suit Withdrawn After Parties’ Stipulation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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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April 09, 2025
COMMENTARY: The Ultimate Social Inflation Survival Guide: Containing Rising Claims Costs In A World Rife With Economic Inflation, Litigation Funding, Nuclear Verdicts, And Anti-Corporate Sentiment
By Scott M. Seaman
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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April 01, 2025
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge In Texas Dismisses Chapter 11 Case Of J&J’s Latest Debtor
HOUSTON — A Texas federal bankruptcy judge on March 31 dismissed the Chapter 11 case of the latest Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff, Red River Talc LLC, after finding that the debtor’s plan of reorganization, which included a $9 billion asbestos trust, cannot be confirmed because voting on the plan cannot be certified due to irregularities and that the plan “contains impermissible nonconsensual third-party releases.”
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March 31, 2025
Canadian Asbestos Miner Can’t Secure Removal Of Judge From Asbestos Case
LOS ANGELES — Allowing that Asbestos Corp. Ltd. (ACL) lacks any support for its “open-ended, unregulated, and chaotic notion” that it can seek removal of the judge presiding over the Los Angeles County asbestos litigation and that the idea runs counter to the “basic concept” of coordinated proceedings, a judge in California struck and denied the challenge.
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March 28, 2025
Citing Case Complexity, Judge Declines Jurisdiction Over State Law Asbestos Claims
LOS ANGELES — Plaintiffs must disclose when they learned the identify of certain coworkers in an asbestos case, and a stipulation eliminating liability arising from government work and government contractor and immunity defenses stripped the case of federal jurisdiction, and the action’s complexity warrants remanding it to a Los Angeles County court, a federal judge in California said while retaining jurisdiction over only pending motions.
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March 27, 2025
Widow: Court Misinterpreted Delaware Law In Worker’s Mesothelioma Case
WILMINGTON, Del. — Lower courts misinterpreted state law governing employee disability and ignored expert testimony about the extent of a man’s losses caused by his mesothelioma’s impact on his organs, a widow tells the Delaware Supreme Court.