After being rebuffed twice by federal courts, the $350 billion healthcare giant is attempting again to end the litigation in a so-called “Texas two-step” bankruptcy. The maneuver involves offloading its talc liability onto a newly created subsidiary, which then declares Chapter 11. The goal is to use the proceeding to force all plaintiffs into one settlement – without requiring J&J itself to file bankruptcy.
But the company needs the votes of 75% of claimants before the subsidiary can ask a bankruptcy judge to impose the deal on all of them. J&J faces lawsuits from more than 61,000 plaintiffs but the figure swells as high as 100,000 when counting claimants who haven’t sued, according to Erik Haas, J&J’s global vice president of litigation. The company maintains its talc products are safe and do not cause cancer.
Some plaintiffs’ lawyers, including Evans’, are urging their clients to support the settlement. Her attorney, Jim Onder, called the offer a good-enough deal to take, given the alternative. Some of his clients, he said, are dying while the legal fight drags on.
“While no amount of money is ever enough for the horrific suffering these women have undergone, this is an opportunity to get money now and avoid many years of additional protracted litigation,” Onder told Reuters.
But a coalition of other plaintiffs’ lawyers is fighting back, saying J&J’s bankruptcy maneuver should not be legally allowable – given that the company itself is immensely profitable – and that its $6.48 billion offer is too low.
I don’t get how a legal entity can somehow magically hand its liability to a ficticious subsidiary. If the suit is against JJ, how could it be pointed somewhere else? Like what is the legal standing for that…?
The legal standing is that a brazenly corrupt Supreme Court has been purchased by billionaires, and any sort of regulatory agency that might counter that sort of thing has been defanged or defunded.
What a complete load of bullcrap.
J&J’s “Two-Step” strategy has already been knocked down twice by Federal Courts and unless J&J appeals the cases will never reach SCOTUS and they won’t do that because they know they will lose. There’s also no “regulatory agency” in charge of the cases that Federal Courts can or must hear nor should one exist.
I agree J&J’s “court shopping” like this is unethical but its up to Congress to make it illegal. Congress, not the Judiciary, is to blame for continuing to allow this legal chicanery
You’re kind of both right. Different sides of the same corruption coin. Both agencies should be willing to curb this practice but both are corrupted.
If the suit is against JJ, how could it be pointed somewhere else?
The parent company sells or transfers all of the assets related to the lawsuit to a separate company and along with those assets goes all the liabilities…like lawsuits.
Yeah, it’s just like when you kill someone in an automobile accident. So long as you sell the car involved, you can pass the liability to the buyer
If Asbestos is in the talc, it cannot be removed. Don’t use products with talc, regardless of how “safe” a company claims it is. You can do tests that won’t detect Asbestos in talc. But a proper test will show if there is Asbestos in the talc. No one needs to use talc anymore in toiletries or food. There are safe alternatives, this is 2024, science has progressed. J&J just wants to avoid losing money and talc is just a cheap product. I boycotted J&J years before this latest issue arose with the talc. There are less evil corporations to buy from.
Shit. The barber put this shit on me at every haircut as a child. I had no idea.
They were doing their job asbestos they can
I am pretty sure this is what took my Aunt. She would bath herself in it every day since I could remember. Died of cancer a few years back but because of other choices the link would never be made.
