After months of procedural wrangling and negotiations about settlement, the asbestos plaintiff’s bar has now attacked the Bestwall/Georgia-Pacific chapter 11 as a “bad faith” filing. The motion is online.
The motion sets out a broad attack. Among other things, the motion focuses attention on GP’s one-day use of a Texas statute to divide up the assets, risks and liabilities related to the Georgia-Pacific business, including its asbestos-risks. The motion also alleges that Georgia-Pacific may have achieved “asbestos-free” products by substituting talc for asbestos. That argument/assertion is especially interesting in light of the recent verdict for plaintiffs in 22 consolidated cases in which all plaintiffs alleged that talc contained asbestos and caused their ovarian cancers.