Complimentary Published Article: Asbestos Trusts And Tort Litigation Are Still Not Aligned
Asbestos Trusts And Tort Litigation Are Still Not Aligned
Authored by Peter R. Kelso of Roux
For decades in asbestos litigation, personal injury law firms have been able to bring claims on behalf of their clients against two, independent compensation systems. The first is the tort system where public lawsuits are filed against dozens of corporate defendants and pursued in various state and federal courts across the country. The second is the asbestos bankruptcy trust system, which allows plaintiff attorneys to file claims against dozens of trusts on behalf of the same tort clients with little to no transparency or coordination with the parallel tort lawsuits.
This lack of coordination between the two compensation systems has led to numerous rulings by state and federal courts regarding the suppression of asbestos bankruptcy trust claim forms during the tort discovery process. Most recently, this issue over the timely disclosure of bankruptcy trust claims has spilled into a New York City Asbestos Litigation (NYCAL) courtroom as defendants sought to overturn a $28.5 million verdict on behalf of a former World Trade Center worker with lung cancer; claiming the plaintiff’s attorneys violated court evidentiary rules by failing to disclose claims made with 54 asbestos bankruptcy trusts until 16 months after trial.
On August 5, a New York judge found that the absence of bankruptcy trust claim forms during tort proceedings could have led to a different outcome in the case and ordered a new trial on the apportionment of liability; thus setting the stage for an upcoming interpretation by the NYCAL court and a jury as to the evidentiary value of asbestos bankruptcy trust claims.
This article is published by Law360. To review the full article please click on the link below:
