CHARLOTTE – Mesothelioma lawyers continue to disobey an order for disclosure about settlements, including the Gori Law Firm in Edwardsville.
The firm agreed to answer questions about 662 clients but missed a Nov. 15 deadline, Georgia Pacific entity Bestwall claims in bankruptcy court.
Bestwall, an entity Georgia Pacific created to resolve current and future claims, has asked for sanctions against the Gori firm and 40 other firms.
Many firms met the deadline by filling holes in previous responses to a Bestwall questionnaire, but they didn’t answer questions at its core.
In response to the sanctions motion, 34 firms indirectly pleaded that they don’t have to answer.
Seven firms including John Simmons’s firm in Alton and the O’Brien firm in St. Louis pleaded it directly.
They claim bankruptcy judge Laura Beyer entered an invalid order when she approved the questionnaire.
Beyer found Bestwall needed answers in order to estimate current and future mesothelioma liabilities.
According to Bestwall, double recovery from civil courts and private bankruptcy trusts inflated past settlements.
Beyer approved the questionnaire in March and set a June 26 deadline, which has operated more as the beginning of compliance than the end.
On Nov. 10, Bestwall counsel Garland Cassada of Charlotte moved to enforce the order and clarify sanctions with respect to claimants who didn’t comply.
Cassada claims that 41 firms with about 2,500 claimants refused to answer questions about lawsuits, trust claims, and aggregate recoveries.
He claims the information would show other potentially responsible parties and potential offsets arising from their payments.
He asked Beyer to provide an opportunity for firms to purge contempt by Dec. 1.
On Nov. 15, Jennifer Lyday of Winston-Salem responded for the Gori firm and 33 others including Maune Raichle and SWMW in St. Louis.
She claims that they made substantial progress in complying with all parts except the settlement and recovery components.
She further claims they still had serious concerns about necessity and legal ramifications.
She claims Bestwall could sufficiently estimate liabilities from aggregated and averaged settlement and recovery data.
She claims questionnaires implicated ethical issues and laws of various states regarding disclosure and discovery.
The firms “have not been authorized by parties to confidential, contractual settlements to disclose the terms of those settlements to the debtor,” she wrote.
Simmons and O’Brien responded in association with Peter Angelos, Weitz and Luxenberg, Motley Rice, Cooney and Conway, and Brayton Purcell.
Their counsel John Buric of Charlotte laid out issues and responses one by one, firm by firm, showing how Bestwall whittles the mass month by month.
Bestwall asked about Simmons providing affidavits of exposure to Georgia Pacific products and no information about other exposures.
“Yes, there may be other affidavits,” Buric wrote. “However, due to confidentiality concerns, this firm is not willing to produce that information.”
He closed his brief by asking for an opportunity to let a Delaware court issue a ruling on the subject.
Cassada replied for Bestwall that refusal to comply delays the case and harms claimants who complied.
“The fact that some claimants have complied also shows there are no ethical or confidentiality barriers to doing so,” he wrote.
He claims the firms aren’t even potentially involved in any hypothetical litigation in Delaware.
“Under no circumstances is the relief in the questionnaire order subject to rulings from the district court in Delaware, just as the order was not subject to rulings from the district court in Illinois,” he wrote.
Maune Raichle sued in Illinois to overturn Beyer’s order, and District Judge Staci Yandle dismissed the suit at an initial hearing.
Beyer sanctioned Maune Raichle for about $400,000, to reimburse Bestwall for its expenses in Illinois.
Beyer set a hearing Dec. 17.