U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan in Trenton, New Jersey, ruled that a J&J company's second bankruptcy, like its first, must be dismissed because the talc lawsuits did not put it in immediate "financial distress."
J&J's first bankruptcy gambit began in 2021, when it offloaded its talc liabilities into a new company, LTL Management, and immediately placed that company into bankruptcy.
Attorneys representing cancer victims, along with the U.S. Justice Department's bankruptcy watchdog, had called for LTL's second bankruptcy to be dismissed as an abuse of U.S. bankruptcy law.
Andy Birchfield, an attorney who represents cancer victims, said the second bankruptcy was meant to keep the talc lawsuits from being heard by juries.
J&J argued that the proposed bankruptcy settlement offers a fairer and faster resolution for cancer claimants than litigation in other courts.
Persons:
Johnson, Mike Segar, imperiling, Michael Kaplan, J, Kaplan, J's, LTL's, LTL, U.S . Justice Department's, Andy Birchfield, Birchfield, Dietrich Knauth, Mike Spector, Jonathan Oatis, Matthew Lewis, Leslie Adler
Organizations:
REUTERS, Johnson, LTL Management, U.S . Justice, J, Thomson
Locations:
New York, U.S, Trenton , New Jersey, California