BENTON – U.S. District Judge Staci Yandle dismissed a challenge to a North Carolina order requiring asbestos plaintiffs to answer questions about their exposure history.
In a hearing on July 23, Yandle said she wouldn’t act as de facto reviewer of the North Carolina court because she had no authority to do so.
A lawyer at that hearing said bankruptcy judge Laura Beyer of Charlotte found law firms in contempt on July 22, for filing the Illinois complaint.
“Judge Beyer has stayed in her lane and I need to stay in my lane,” Yandle said.
Beyer had directed a show cause order to the Gori firm of Edwardsville, Maune Raichle of St. Louis, and Cooney and Conway of Chicago.
No contempt order appeared on Beyer’s docket as of 1 p.m. on July 23.
Beyer presides over the bankruptcy of Bestwall, an entity Georgia-Pacific created to resolve asbestos liabilities.
Beyer granted Bestwall a hearing to estimate future liabilities, and asbestos firms proposed to base the estimate on past settlements.
Bestwall proposed to investigate a possibility that it paid too much for some settlements due to deception, and it relied on a case where some plaintiffs alleged one set of exposures in asbestos trusts and another set of exposures in civil court.
In March, Beyer ruled that Bestwall could send about 5,000 questionnaires to about 800 firms and the firms could fill them out from their files.
Beyer had said at a hearing she didn’t think lawyers wanted clients filling them out.
She required anyone seeking relief from her order to do so in her court. She set a July 26 deadline.
Firms petitioned District Judge Robert Conrad of Charlotte for leave to appeal, and he denied it in May.
On June 21, in the Southern District of Illinois, attorney Stephen Williams of Belleville sued Bestwall on behalf of 13 Illinois citizens with questionnaires pending.
He claimed Bestwall shouldn’t get responses without subpoenas.
On June 22, attorney Patrick Murphy of Marion entered an appearance and moved for a preliminary injunction and an emergency hearing.
Murphy formerly presided in district court as district judge, and Williams formerly presided there as magistrate judge.
On June 23, in Charlotte, Bestwall filed a contempt motion against the Gori firm, Maune Raichle, Cooney and Conway, and John Simmons’s firm in Alton.
Bestwall offered to withdraw the motion if the firms would dismiss the Illinois complaint, and clients of Simmons took the offer.
Bestwall counsel Livia Kiser of Chicago moved to dismiss the other firms on July 14.
She claimed they wanted Yandle to act as a horizontal appellate court.
In response on July 20, Murphy wrote, “The boundaries of bankruptcy power cannot be extended on a party’s whims or to facilitate a desired result. Quite simply, bankruptcy courts are unable to expand their own jurisdiction by order.”
Murphy’s motion for injunction remained pending, and Bestwall had responded.
At 4:48 p.m. on July 22, after Beyer’s hearing on contempt in Charlotte, Murphy asked Yandle for leave to reply to Bestwall’s response on the injunction.
He attached 345 pages of exhibits.
Yandle denied leave at 5:38 p.m., finding no circumstances to warrant a reply.
Next morning, with more than 20 persons listening on Yandle’s telephone, Murphy said she was the only court with jurisdiction over citizens of her district.
“We’re not a party in North Carolina,” Murphy said. “If we were, things would be different.”
He said Beyer usurped Yandle’s authority to look after citizens of her district.
Yandle said right or wrong, there was no subpoena for her to address.
Murphy said, “They threw the dart right into your district.”
Kiser said, “These plaintiffs are getting all the process they’re entitled to. The whole point of this process is to give money to plaintiffs.
“If they don’t want to get paid, they don’t have to respond.”
She said plaintiffs argued everything with Beyer that they argued here.
Yandle took a pair of precedents and left.
Upon returning, she said plaintiffs couldn’t allege that they didn’t receive notice and opportunity to respond.
“Plaintiffs’ redress is in the district court of the Western District of North Carolina and the Fourth Circuit appellate court,” Yandle said.
She said she’d enter no written order.
Minutes of the event state that parties could find her reasons in the transcript.