A Los Angeles-based pipemaker is seeking to revive its racketeering claims against some of America's most prominent filers of asbestos lawsuits, introducing what it calls new testimony from alleged whistleblowers who can substantiate the company's claims that firms including Simmons Hanly Conroy have used fraud to secure verdicts and settlements worth potentially billions of dollars in allegedly wrongly filed asbestos cases.
"Newly discovered evidence, including first-hand evidence shared by 'insider' whistleblowers outside of Simmons Hanly Conroy LLP, has revealed critical insights into an enterprise run by a control group of law firms working in unison to: bring fraudulent asbestos lawsuits; coach witnesses on product identification, including through 'bounty programs' that reward attorneys for facilitating fabricated product/company claims; defraud asbestos bankruptcy trusts; obstruct justice through the destruction of evidence; and silence enterprise insiders," plaintiff J-M Manufacturing said in its latest filing.
"This pattern of fraud causes harm not only to the companies like J-MM who must defend themselves against these sham lawsuits, but also work to the detriment of: current and future asbestos victims exposed to and harmed by specific asbestos-containing products; plaintiff asbestos firms outside of the control group; and experts and medical professionals who do not further the control group's playbook."
Ashwin Ram
| Buchalter
The new filing from J-M Manufacturing landed in Chicago federal court on April 15, about a month since U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman tossed their initial attempt to sue Alton-based Simmons Hanly Conroy for allegedly cheating its way to billions of dollars for asbestos personal injury plaintiffs.
J-M initially leveled the first version of its lawsuit in May 2024 against Simmons Hanly Conroy, the second most prolific filer of asbestos-related lawsuits in the U.S.
According to a recent report from technology and management consulting firm KCIC, only The Gori Firm, of Edwardsville, filed more asbestos lawsuits in 2024.
On its website, the Simmons firm has boasted of having secured more than $10 billion in asbestos settlements and verdicts in the past 25 years, including $1 billion in Illinois cases alone.
Much of that activity has centered in Madison and St. Clair county courts. According to KCIC, those two counties retained their dubious distinction has America's top destinations for asbestos-related lawsuits in 2024, accounting for nearly half of all asbestos lawsuits in the U.S. last year.
According to court documents, J-M has been sued more than 6,000 times for alleged asbestos exposure, including more than 400 lawsuits brought by the Simmons firm.
However, J-M asserts those lawsuits allegedly have been driven by fraud. J-M specifically has accused the Simmons firm of falsifying or suppressing evidence in asbestos cases and coaching witnesses to allegedly lie under oath about exposure to asbestos from cement pipes J-M produced.
This March, Judge Gettleman dismissed those claims.
Gettleman agreed with Simmons' lawyers that J-M fell short of proving its racketeering and fraud claims against the firm. The judge ruled J-M didn't present enough evidence to support its claims that Simmons had engaged in any activity that connected all of its "discrete cases," failing to show any coordination among the plaintiffs and lawyers involved in each of the cases.
However, J-M has now returned to court, essentially asking the judge to take another look at the case or allow them to amend their lawsuit and try again, in light of new evidence they claim to have amassed reinforcing their claims.
In the new filing, J-M claims they have alleged whistleblowers who they say are prepared to testify not only to back their claims against Simmons Hanly Conroy, but also to allow them to pursue other prominent asbestos lawsuit-filing firms, including the Gori firm and the Sokolove firm, and two other unidentified firms, logged only at this point as Law Firms C and D, "who coordinate with SHC in an association-in-fact enterprise."
"Everyone in the enterprise has a role to play, and they all work toward the same goal of extracting settlements and bankruptcy trust payouts through a pattern of unlawful conduct, including racketeering activity," J-M wrote.
In the filing, J-M said its whistleblowers' testimony will "highlight how the bankruptcy trust claims and tort lawsuits carried out by the enterprise are permeated with fraud," whether in claims presented to the so-called asbestos bankruptcy trusts for claims against bankrupt companies that no longer exist or in court against companies still in operation, like J-M.
According to the filing, this allegedly includes:
- Directing asbestos plaintiffs to "indiscriminately sign a compilation of affidavits claiming exposure to the products of a broad swatch of bankrupt companies without first investigating the plaintiff's exposure history (and completely divorced from the reality of any actual potential exposures)" (parenthetical in original);
- Coaching plaintiffs to then not claim exposures to those same bankrupt companies' products, to allegedly allow those same plaintiffs to also sue active companies, like J-M;
- Setting up "a 'bounty system' to coordinate (lawsuit) targets with the other enterprise law firms;"
- Allegedly coordinating on a campaign to "keep their scheme under the radar" and maintain their employees' silence, including using "no-poach and similar agreements .. impeding their employees' mobility;" and
- Allegedly exercising "significant control over bankruptcy trusts" to "setup the systematic destruction of all records of resolved bankruptcy claims older than one year," to allegedly cover their tracks.
"While these measures have been cloaked in the guise of 'privacy' concerns, they are a transparent and coordinated effort to cover up the bankruptcy trust shell game, while also shining light on how ... Enterprise players obtain preferential treatment and favored payouts in connection with bankruptcy trusts to the detriment of other current and future claimants," J-M wrote.
They asserted the firms have allegedly further worked together through a "cooperative referral system" allowing the "dominant firms" to maintain "control in the market for asbestos lawsuits and ... to secure the most lucrative payouts, whether through extracting settlements through sham lawsuits (with attendant kickbacks) or through fraudulent bankruptcy trust claims."
"And the concerted efforts to maintain secrecy allows the enterprise to continue its pattern of fraudulent activity, and continue to reap ill-gotten gains, without detection until now," J-M claimed in its filing.
The judge has given the defendants in the action until May 15 to file a response.
J-M is represented by attorneys Ashwin J. Ram and Sonja Arndt, of Buchalter P.C., of Chicago and Los Angeles; and J-M General Counsel Frank Fletcher.
In a statement accompanying the filing of the new motion, J-M attorney Ashwin Ram said the "filing highlights the impact whistleblowers can have in addressing misconduct that has run unchecked for decades with sham asbestos claims and the enterprise perpetuating them.
"We are encouraged by the prospect of additional whistleblowers coming forward to shine light on this rampant misconduct, which has also been highlighted by Congress, state attorneys general, and state legislatures.”