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Johnson and Johnson bankruptcy claim is a ruse to limit liability, cancer victims say

Juliet Gray has felt many things since she was first diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma two years ago.

Pain, which flares up when she’s stressed or tired. Fear, with every new doctor’s visit as she dreads the return of her rare, terminal cancer. Heartache, when she thinks of her 9-year-old son and how quickly her time with him is running out.

Mostly, though, she’s mad. She’s furious with New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, whose talc products she blames for her incurable cancer. And her fury recently curdled into betrayal after Johnson & Johnson filed for bankruptcy in a controversial strategy company attorneys say will expedite the nearly 40,000 lawsuits against them.

Critics say the company — worth over $400 billion — is far from bankrupt and instead just wants to keep their cases from being heard by juries. Maryland-based attorney Jonathan Ruckdeschel, who has filed several lawsuits against J&J, said such a strategy forces plaintiffs into a collectively negotiated, judicially enforced settlement and removes their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.

“What they’re trying to do is cram everybody into a one-size-fits-all mandatory settlement that nobody has the choice to opt in or out of, and if you

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State using ‘frivolous appeals’ in dam suits

State using ‘frivolous appeals’ in dam suits

An attorney representing central Michigan residents damaged by the 2020 dam failures accused state attorneys on Thursday of delaying court proceedings with “frivolous appeals.”

“You would think that the state would hold itself accountable for infrastructure,” Detroit attorney Ven Johnson said. “But in this particular case, the state is dug in.”

Johnson’s clients have accused the state of negligently regulating the Edenville and Sanford dams, which failed on May 19, 2020 and caused widespread flooding in the Midland area and causing about 10,000 people to evacuate. Johnson hosted a Thursday press conference in Sanford to commemorate the three-year anniversary of the dam failures.

State using ‘frivolous appeals’ in dam suits

In case filings, the state has placed the blame for those dam failures on Boyce Hydro, the company that owned the dams that is now bankrupt. Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office in a Thursday statement reiterated arguments it has made in court, where state attorneys characterized the residents’ lawsuit as “misguided” in their appeal.

The dispute hinges on whether residents’ claims qualify as “inverse condemnation” claims, which would mean the state took their property for public use without appropriate compensation and would remove Michigan’s governmental immunity protection.

Michigan Court of Claims sided in part with residents in

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