Bullies are all the same. They act tough, but they never pick on someone their own size or have few scruples about cheating. Behind the bravado, they're cowards.
Bullies expect the targeted victims to give up quickly or run away. When victims fight back, how the bullies howl! They act as though the victims started it all and are not fighting fair.
Some asbestos lawyers act like bullies, targeting companies besieged by lawsuits, inflating claims and claimants, using questionable evidence, concealing or delaying claims against other entities, etc.
Garlock Sealing Technologies says it was being victimized, and for a long time the company accepted the role assigned to it by its tormentors.
Then Garlock started fighting back and the tough-guy attorneys cried foul.
Two years ago, federal bankruptcy Judge George Hodges ruled that plaintiffs attorneys from the Houston law firm of Williams Kherkher Hart Boundas had engaged in unethical practices to maximize recovery against Garlock. He denounced “the effort by some plaintiffs and their lawyers to withhold evidence of exposure to other asbestos products and to delay filing claims against bankrupt defendants’ asbestos trusts until after obtaining recoveries from Garlock.”
The day before that verdict was delivered, Garlock filed RICO suits against Dallas-based Simon Greenstone and four other asbestos firms.
Simon Greenstone attorneys tried, unsuccessfully, to invoke a statute of limitations and have the case against them dismissed – not because the charge was false, but because Garlock waited too long to file suit.
Another targeted company, John Crane Inc., now has cast off its victim status and accused Simon Greenstone of racketeering, seeking to join Garlock's suit
The bested bullies have responded, whining to the judge that it's not fair for plaintiffs to have the tables turned on them and be treated as defendants.
Simon Greenstone can dish it out, but they can't seem to take it.