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L_Cranston_Shadow OP t1_j6ipda4 wrote

Full text:

>A federal appeals court rejected Johnson & Johnson‘s plan to use a legal strategy to push about 38,000 talc lawsuits into bankruptcy court, hampering the controversial tactic the company and a handful of other profitable businesses have used to move mass personal-injury cases to chapter 11.
 
>The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday dismissed the chapter 11 case of J&J subsidiary LTL Management LLC, which the consumer-health-goods giant created in 2021 to move to bankruptcy court the mass lawsuits alleging its talc-based baby powder products caused cancer.
 
>The unanimous ruling was a rebuke to an emerging corporate restructuring strategy in which companies facing mass tort litigation invoke a Texas law to create a new subsidiary with minimal business operations and make it responsible for tort liabilities before putting that subsidiary in bankruptcy.
 
>A J&J representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. The company has denied that its talc products are unsafe and said resolving the tort claims in a chapter 11 plan was more efficient and fair for injury claimants than litigating or settling each claim one by one.

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Frozty23 t1_j6j2eyb wrote

> fair

Appeals Court: You keep using that word. It does not mean what you think it means.

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JcbAzPx t1_j6khrvo wrote

To them, it means they don't pay.

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tonycomputerguy t1_j6krlc0 wrote

Fair? Fare is what you pay to ride the bus... that's the only fare I know.

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Chippopotanuse t1_j6j6aao wrote

Good old Texas…always looking to fuck the common man who was harmed by huge companies.

Why doesn’t Texas try to put a cap on how much harmful cancer-causing crap a company can put in its products? (instead of capping how much you can sue them for when they do?)

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L_Cranston_Shadow OP t1_j6j72nf wrote

Usually I would say we have nothing on Delaware, when it comes to keeping companies from being held responsible, but thanks to the oil, gas, and chemical companies that are the lifeblood of Galveston and the bay, there is no accountability anymore. Every few years one of the refineries catches fire and/or explodes, and still nothing is done. It also doesn't help that our legislature only meets every two years and that the victims are poor and predominantly African American.

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pmiller61 t1_j6l1kpp wrote

The population affected is all that matters

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Showerthawts t1_j6jic7r wrote

>The unanimous ruling was a rebuke to an emerging corporate restructuring strategy in which companies facing mass tort litigation invoke a Texas law to create a new subsidiary with minimal business operations and make it responsible for tort liabilities before putting that subsidiary in bankruptcy.

WOW that is really shitty.

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TywinDeVillena t1_j6ky730 wrote

How in the fuck is that even legal?

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KallistiTMP t1_j6li12p wrote

The law exists to protect capitalists' financial interests, not the interests of the people. Everything else is propaganda. Even the laws that people think of as being there to protect citizens like the laws against assault, theft, murder, hard drugs, etc, are really just clever ways of extracting the maximum amount of profit and slave labor from whichever group of people society feels least sympathetic towards.

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Stibley_Kleeblunch t1_j6l7xbw wrote

Well, it's one step closer to not being legal now, it seems...

Loopholes don't get closed until they're discovered.

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TywinDeVillena t1_j6lylbm wrote

Here in Spain that action would be a crime called alzamiento de bienes (literally "uplift of goods") which is more or less conceptually equivalent to asset stripping.

Alzamiento de bienes is defined as the intentional hiding of property or assets, or intentional mismanagement, in order to obstruct creditors from being paid.

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Stibley_Kleeblunch t1_j6m0gpd wrote

It's good to see that some of us have our heads screwed on straight, at least.

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TywinDeVillena t1_j6m67yr wrote

I was sure the *alzamiento de bienes* was illegal since time immemorial, and just checked the Siete Partidas, a massive legal code from the 13th century, where such a thing can be found in Partida V, title XV, law VII:

How if a debtor alienates his goods in damage of those to whom he owed something, may that alienation be revoked.

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BroHanzo t1_j6k1d73 wrote

So they know what they did? They know how they did it? They know who was involved and what “company” it’s now under….

Fuck these stupid assholes. Collectively. I’m sure individually someone has a red flag they’re waving, but collectively? If the company is to survive, are you gonna be the one to press the big red button?

Because we all know, all of it. I live and work with J&J people. It’s wild what they did - but they got away with it! Signaling to other companies, that if you sell a harmful product, then you’re fine as long as you launder the lawsuits through your subsidiaries!

This should be illegal, and why it’s not speaks to how fucked up our system is and how frustrating it is to be an American citizen, Watch this happen, and think to myself “well… I guess they always win huh.”

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mrdilldozer t1_j6kuwin wrote

The product likely isn't harmful. You don't need to worry too much about it. A ton of follow-up studies have been done on it. The evidence of it causing cancer isn't great. Don't feel bad for them though, they've likely used their money to dodge lawsuits that actually deserved to lose in the past. If you want to be a multi-billion dollar company you better be willing to deal with the risks of the business.

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damon459 t1_j6lanhc wrote

https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/poison/talcum-powder-poisoning

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mrdilldozer t1_j6lcp89 wrote

Uhh, you are aware of what the lawsuit was about right? It was about ovarian cancer. Did you read the article above? If this case were about breathing in small particles, the makers of Fun Dip would be fucked too. This case is about very specific medical claims. I don't feel sympathy for J&J, but I'm not going to pretend that a jury gets to have the final word on science. I can laugh at them for getting fucked over and read about the evidence at the same time. It's not a binary choice here.

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damon459 t1_j6lerg2 wrote

I did you said there was no cancer risk, if it causes cancer in the lungs it’s not a huge leap to it’s carcinogenic and therefore causes cancer…

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mrdilldozer t1_j6lj40t wrote

> if it causes cancer in the lungs it’s not a huge leap to it’s carcinogenic and therefore causes cancer…

It's a massive leap to say that. There is a ton of evidence about small particles getting trapped in the lungs leading to cellular damage. That causes the cells in the lungs to mutate into cancer. Ovaries don't function the same way your lungs do. It's why not using sunscreen puts you at risk for skin cancer and not pancreatic cancer. Different cancers have different causes.

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damon459 t1_j6lmg5h wrote

Yeah and asbestos in you talc will cause cancer, get a clue.

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mrdilldozer t1_j6ln9u2 wrote

A "wow, thanks for explaining basic things about cancer to me" would have been nice too. Take care, Dunning-Kruger.

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ThickerSalmon14 t1_j6mikdd wrote

If understand this properly, 3M just recently got slapped trying to do this same thing with their military noise protection gear lawsuits.

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