June 2023

3M Unit Bankruptcy Toss Is Second Blow to Mass Tort Defense Play

The termination of 3M Co. unit Aearo Technologies LLC’s bankruptcy casts fresh doubt on the tactic of using Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a legal strategy in mass tort litigation, likely emboldening plaintiffs.

The June 9 decision from Judge Jeffrey J. Graham of the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Indiana hewed closely to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit’s analysis earlier this year in its dismissal of a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary’s bankruptcy on similar grounds.

The two rulings are a pair of major setbacks for solvent companies eyeing bankruptcy to handle mass tort liabilities—a practice that has seen substantial growth in recent years.

Graham’s decision, along with the Third Circuit’s ruling on J&J unit LTL Management LLC, creates “hurdles that may be absent from the bankruptcy code,” said attorney Douglas Mintz of Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP.

“I think the biggest application here is it will empower plaintiffs to push more aggressively outside of bankruptcy and leave tort defendants with fewer tools in their toolbox or less certainty that one of the tools will work,” Mintz said.

Graham held that Aearo’s attempt to use bankruptcy to settle approximately 230,000 lawsuits over allegedly defective military

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June 15, 2023 by ATTORNEY

After 8 years, Milford strip club settles lawsuit with dancers
FILE PHOTO: Keepers Gentlemen's Club at 354 Woodmont Road on Tuesday, January 26, 2016. The club was sued by dancers saying they were not being paid the minimum wage.

FILE PHOTO: Keepers Gentlemen’s Club at 354 Woodmont Road on Tuesday, January 26, 2016. The club was sued by dancers saying they were not being paid the minimum wage.

Brian A. Pounds / Hearst Connecticut Media

A hearing in the case had been scheduled for Monday morning on a request from the dancers’ lawyer to have a $200,000 judgment in the case taken from a land use settlement between the town of Stratford and Gus Curcio, a resident convicted of extortion in the 1980s who is also linked to the club.

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Krayeske would not discuss the specifics of the agreement Monday.

“The matter is settled,” he said, declining further comment. 

The settlement comes a month after a bankruptcy trustee in the case of Joseph Regensburger, a Fairfield man who was once president of the club, said he could not find any assets to satisfy the dancers’ claims, even though a Department of Justice lawyer has alleged the bankruptcy was a ruse designed to hide assets. 

The bankruptcy hearing had seemed to have left the former exotic dancers who sued the club in 2015 alleging wage theft years away from seeing a dime of

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June 14, 2023 by ATTORNEY

NOLA District Attorney joins effort to unseal secret Archdiocese records for criminal investigation

It’s the first time that law enforcement has made moves to expose secret records the Archdiocese has fought to protect for decades.

NEW ORLEANS — Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams is urging a federal court to unseal sworn testimony by the Rev. Lawrence Hecker, as well as records held in secret by the New Orleans Archdiocese about Hecker, saying his office needs them to bring potential criminal charges against the accused child molester.

“The continued sealing of the documents in this case serves as a major impediment to a proper investigation,” Williams wrote in a motion filed Tuesday. “Sworn deposition testimony concerning the commission of a crime should not be withheld from a prosecutorial authority merely because reputations may be harmed. Evidence that a crime has been committed should be brought before the proper court.”

It’s the first time that law enforcement has made moves to expose secret records the Archdiocese has fought to protect for decades. 

Even after the local church placed Hecker on a list of priests credibly accused of child sexual abuse in 2018, the Archdiocese has argued its 2020 bankruptcy prevents the records from being released.

The motion by Williams supports efforts by attorneys representing

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June 10, 2023 by ATTORNEY

Zali Burrows sues herself into bankruptcy

Criminal lawyer Zali Burrows’ 12-year pursuit of her own lawyers over a $12,000 sum has pushed her to the brink of bankruptcy, which she is attempting to fend off with more legal action in the Federal Court.

Burrows, whose high-profile clients include former Auburn deputy mayor and convicted fraud Salim Mehajer, murderer and drug importer Bassam Hamzy and terrorist Hamdi Alqudsi, is appealing bankruptcy orders brought against her by Macpherson Kelley Lawyers on grounds including that the notice was not correctly served.

Criminal solicitor Zali Burrows is fighting bankruptcy proceedings brought by her former lawyers.

Criminal solicitor Zali Burrows is fighting bankruptcy proceedings brought by her former lawyers.Credit: Kate Geraghty

The origins of the dispute date back to a legal matter in 2011, since which time a judge of the NSW Court of Appeal has commented that the costs of pursuing the sum awarded in her favour have vastly exceeded the amount in issue. Macpherson Kelley, then known as M&K Sydney, advised Burrows in the 2011 proceedings, with the court making a costs order of $12,239.83 in her favour.

In November 2015, Burrows sued M&K Sydney and her former solicitor Melinda Di Condio in the NSW District Court, saying they had failed to enforce that costs order, with an additional claim of

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June 9, 2023 by ATTORNEY

Court clears way on bankruptcy deal for maker of OxyContin
FILE PHOTO: Bottles of prescription painkiller OxyContin pills, made by Purdue Pharma LP sit on a counter at a local pharmacy in Provo, Utah, US, April 25, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

A federal appeals court in New York on Tuesday cleared the way for a bankruptcy deal that will protect the billionaire Sackler family — whose Purdue Pharma produced the painkiller OxyContin that fueled the US opioid addiction crisis — from future lawsuits in exchange for $6 billion to fight opioid addiction and to assist the drug’s victims.

The settlement plan includes a total of up to $750 million, and eligible claimants would each receive between $3,500 and $48,000.

The Sacklers earned billions of dollars from the sale of OxyContin and other opioids. Family members have denied wrongdoing and said they wouldn’t fund the $6 billion settlement payment unless they were fully released from civil liability.

Government lawyers had argued that the settlement plan grants the Sacklers, who haven’t personally filed for bankruptcy, protections against opioid liability that aren’t permitted by US bankruptcy law.

The Justice Department could ask the Supreme Court to review Tuesday’s ruling.

The ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a December 2021

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June 5, 2023 by ATTORNEY
June 2023
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