Lawsuits against law firms continue to be part of the increasing complexities of asbestos litigation. A recent example arises from asbestos plaintiffs receiving – after a decade – permission to proceed with a lawsuit against the estate of a former partner at Arter & Hadden, a defense law firm that worked on cases for Combustion Engineering. The recent outcome was reported by Mealey’s Litigation Report: Asbestos in Judge Allows Joinder Of Hawaii Asbestos Law Firm In Fraud Case, Remands Action, V. 31, Issue 20 Mealey’s Litig. Rep. Asb. at 18 (2016).
Mealey’s explained the case as follows;
“[Multiple plaintiffs] filed a class action lawsuit in Hawaii on behalf of all individual who settled asbestos claims with Combustion Engineering Inc. (CE) in Hawaii between 1982 and 2000. At issue were responses to interrogatories in which CE allegedly falsely claimed to have not sold asbestos-containing products in Hawaii and that it had no knowledge that its products were used in Hawaii. The Baclaan plaintiffs claimed that Travelers Insurance Co. and Travelers Indemnity Co. (Travelers defendants) withheld information on these points in an effort to entice the plaintiffs to accept “nuisance value settlements.” The Baclaan plaintiffs claimed that CE employed Arter & Hadden acted as national counsel and Char, Hamilton, Campbell & Thom as local counsel. The plaintiffs alleged that those who participated in the fraud owed them the difference between what they recovered and what they were rightfully due.”
The case is Lorenzo Baclaan and Naomi Baclaan v. Combustion Engineering, et al., No. 03-325, George H. Toro and Vivian Toro, et al. v. Combustion Engineering, et al., No. 03-326, Theodore K. Hopkins and Ruby Hopkins v. Combustion Engineering, et al., No. 03-401, D. Hawaii.”
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