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April 14, 2025
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
By Scott M. Seaman
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April 10, 2025
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
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
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
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
By Brian J. Schneider
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April 07, 2025
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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March 27, 2025
NEW YORK — An asbestos expert’s and hospital’s delay in producing the identities of asbestos-talc study participants while they challenged a ruling requiring compliance with the subpoena constitutes zealous advocacy rather than clear disobedience, a New York justice said in declining to find contempt on the grounds that doing so would “chill such advocacy” and that attorney fees weren’t appropriate.
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March 26, 2025
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island law governs successor liability issues in an asbestos-talc case against Johnson & Johnson entities and precludes dismissing the case, a justice in the state said in denying the motion.
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March 25, 2025
NEW ORLEANS — A federal magistrate judge in Louisiana denied as moot a motion to withdraw a motion to compel production after a shipyard – through what it termed “great effort” – secured authorized release of employment records in a take-home asbestos case.
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March 25, 2025
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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March 21, 2025
NEW YORK — A cosmetics company filed notice that it would appeal a New York justice’s denial of its motion to renew and conclusion that an appellate ruling finding that Texas law applied to an asbestos case did not upend the long-established New York law or entitle the manufacturer to summary judgment.