CHARLOTTE – Bankruptcy Judge Laura Beyer held 2,140 asbestos plaintiffs in contempt on Feb. 10, and gave them a week to answer questions of Georgia Pacific entity Bestwall.
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina – Bankruptcy court administrator Shelley Abel knocked asbestos giants Simmons Hanly Conroy and Motley Rice off a committee of firms with claims against CertainTeed Corporation.
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.
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 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.
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.
NEW YORK CITY – Former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, under conviction for corruption, claims that testimony about the mesothelioma foundation of Madison County asbestos lawyer John Simmons prejudiced his jury.
A Chicago cancer doctor whose research organization has received funding from the Simmons Mesothelioma Foundation has appeared in at least seven Madison County asbestos lawsuits as a treating physician or expert witness for cases filed by the Simmons firm of Alton.
On Nov. 30, jurors found former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver guilty of giving state funds to Dr. Robert Taub while making money on referrals from him. The Simmons Foundation in 2010 executed a contract with Taub's research center at Columbia University, pledging $3.15 million in five years.
NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – Sheldon Silver, a once-powerful politician who worked at one of the most prominent asbestos law firms in the country, was found guilty of corruption by a federal jury on Monday. The verdict against Silver, a Democrat who was the speaker of the Assembly prior to the indictment against him, came in the fifth week of the trial, the New York Times reported.
NEW YORK CITY – John Simmons and his firm spend $15 to $20 million a year on advertising, his former chief executive testified at the criminal trial of former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on Nov. 10. Greg Kirkland testified that the firm employs about 200 persons, which would mean that the firm spends $75,000 to $100,000 per employee on advertising.
NEW YORK CITY – Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, facing a corruption trial, won’t call to the witness stand a professor who blessed his cozy position in the asbestos firm of Weitz and Luxenburg. On Sept. 30, Silver abandoned his argument that Roy Simon of Hofstra School of Law exonerated him in a report to Weitz and Luxenburg. He declared he doesn’t intend to call Simon as an expert witness, relieving U.S.
Kazan Giants of asbestos litigation hold half the power in seven trust funds that paid $2.4 billion in claims in 2008, according to tables in a new Rand Corporation report.
