Law firms leading multidistrict litigation against the opioid industry have borrowed as much as $102 million under the federal Paycheck Protection Program designed to preserve jobs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The law firms said the loans were needed to pay some 3,000 employees.
TRENTON, N.J. (Legal Newsline) – Makers of parts that did not contain asbestos – but would later need to be used with parts that did – owed a duty to warn users, according to the New Jersey Supreme Court.
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - New filings claiming exposure to asbestos caused lung cancer sharply increased by more than 20 percent last year, according to an annual report by a business consultancy firm.
CLEVELAND (Legal Newsline) - Their request for some $3 billion in fees has generated fierce resistance from state attorneys general and defendants, but don’t worry about the financial states of private lawyers who represent thousands of municipal plaintiffs in opioid litigation.
A class action claiming a company that manufactures products containing teflon contaminated the groundwater in and around a town in upstate New York has largely survived a challenge to dismiss the claims.
Former New York State Assembly leader Sheldon Silver will be re-sentenced after an appeals court upheld four of seven counts of bribery, extortion and money laundering.
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – Plaintiff experts who testify that even extremely low levels of asbestos exposure can cause cancer may be in trouble after a study of some 2 million women found no difference between urban and rural residents in the rate of mesothelioma, a deadly cancer of the chest lining that is normally associated with asbestos.
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – The main asbestos law firm in New York City is asking a judge there to schedule joint trials that would consolidate 24 cases into 12 trials.
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – The maker of floor tiles sued for a man’s asbestos-caused disease says all exposures to the deadly substance are not equal, using a 2015 state court decision that favored companies sued in the long-running mass tort.
A company that helped build the World Trade Center is telling a New York City judge to dismiss it from the lawsuit of a carpenter who also worked on the site and now has mesothelioma, the serious disease caused by asbestos that often leads to the highest verdicts and settlements.
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – A staggering amount of money is at stake as New York’s top court is asked to decide if New York City’s controversial asbestos court is treating defendants fairly.
Asbestos defendants failed to convince New York’s highest court to intervene in a long-running fight over how the New York City asbestos court known as NYCAL does business, leaving them with few options as hundreds of lawsuits march toward trial in the plaintiff-friendly venue.
New Jersey judges must require plaintiffs lawyers who flock to their courts to come up with more than junk science if they want jurors to hear their arguments.
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - The third season of the wildly popular show "Billions" premiered in March with a mention of an oddly arcane subject: asbestos bankruptcy trusts. The dialogue coming out of the mouth of prosecutor Chuck Rhodes, played by Paul Giamatti, becomes a little less mysterious when you look at who wrote it, however.
ALBANY, N.Y. (Legal Newsline) - New York lawmakers won't discuss a bill targeting abuses in the asbestos compensation system during today's meeting of the Senate Finance Committee, where the bill, which is similar to legislation passed in 15 states, has sat for three months since being approved by the Judiciary Committee.
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – Reform bills that would require asbestos plaintiffs to disclose all potential claims in court appear stalled in the New York legislature, three weeks after former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was convicted for a second time on charges stemming directly from the state’s scandal-prone asbestos court system.
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – For a second time, a jury has convicted former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver of corruption for using his status as a lawmaker and asbestos attorney to rake in millions of dollars.
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - Sheldon Silver used his immense power as Speaker of the New York State Assembly to reap millions of dollars in bribes from Weitz & Luxenberg, one of the most prominent asbestos law firms in the country, a prosecutor told jurors at the opening of Silver’s retrial on federal corruption trials.
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - The retrial of former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is scheduled to begin Monday on charges including allegations he collected millions of dollars in improper payments from a prominent asbestos law firm, Weitz & Luxenberg.
CLEVELAND (Legal Newsline) - There will be a lot of familiar faces in U.S. District Judge Dan Polster’s courtroom in Cleveland on Jan. 31, when lawyers gather for a hearing on multidistrict litigation against the nation’s opioid manufacturers and distributors.
