I'm writing several times a day about products liability for Law.com/The National Law Journal. Occasionally I cross-post a blog I find particularly interesting.
A bankruptcy judge, who found “demonstrable misrepresentation” by plaintiffs' lawyers in several asbestos cases, denied the motions of asbestos defendants and a media outlet to access that sealed evidence.
Ford Motor Co., joined by Volkswagen Group of America Inc, Honeywell International Inc. and Crane Co., filed a motion to unseal that evidence. In a separation motion, news outlet Legal Newsline sought to unseal the trial testimony and exhibits on which the judge based his Jan. 10, 2014, order, finding that plaintiffs' lawyers withheld evidence of their clients' exposure to other sources of asbestos in the bankruptcy case of Garlock Sealing Technologies, LLC.
Those cases included two that resulted in a $9 million verdict in California and a $1.35 million verdict in Texas, the judge said.
By denying the motions, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge George Hodges of the Western District of North Carolina said in a hearing on March 27 that he was hoping to “get all of us to an answer as simply as I can” on whether that evidence should be publicly accessible.
By denying the motions on their merits, the judge said he hoped that would get the motions to the U.S. district court on appeal for resolution at the same time.
Legal Newsline already has an appeal pending in the district court on being denied permission by Hodges to attend the hearing during which he heard evidence on the estimated liability Garlock faces for asbestos claims.
“The practical problem I have is this: if I granted the motions to unseal filed by Ford and Volkswagen and Legal Newsline it would essentially moot the appeal,” Hodges said.
Trevor Swett III, a plaintiffs attorney with Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered in Washington, argued that Hodges did not have subject-matter jurisdiction anymore because Legal Newsline has appealed the sealing of the evidence and the closing of the courtroom.
“They mean to unseal the evidence going to the supposed misrepresentation and suppression of evidence,” Swett argued. “That’s the same evidence implicated in their demands on appeal.”
Legal Newsline's attorney, Steven Pflaum, argued that jurisdiction was not divested because the district court only has to decide if the courtroom should have been closed during the estimation hearing.
Unsealing the evidence would allow public understanding of who has been victimized by a pattern of misrepresentation, said Pflaum, of Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP in Chicago.
It is “vitally important that the public understand the courts,” Pflaum said.
Hodges ruled on a separate motion that insurer Aetna, Inc., and Rawling Company LLC, a cost containment vendor for insurers, brought to have access to Federal Rule of Bankruptcy 2019 statements. Those statements must be filed by anyone participating in bankruptcy cases.
Hodges said that social security numbers and the retention agreements law firms enter into with clients can't be disclosed.
“It appears to me ... that the interests of the opposing parties are not superior to the public rights to access and that there is a legitimate interest here on behalf of the movants” to protect their subrogation rights against asbestos defendants and reimbursement rights against members of insurance plans, Hodges said.
Read more: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202648736269/Judge-Denies-Access-t...
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