Drugmaker Pfizer Inc. is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a federal appeals court's ruling that allows certain asbestos-related lawsuits against the company, even though the subsidiary that was the main target of the suits went through bankruptcy reorganization, Westlaw Journals reported yesterday. The ruling by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals "frustrates the congressional purposes" of the law written to deal with asbestos-related bankruptcies, Pfizer said in its petition for a writ of certiorari. In April, the Second Circuit said that Pfizer can face suits over asbestos-containing products made by its unit Quigley Co. Quigley, which Pfizer bought in 1968, at one time faced suits by more than 160,000 plaintiffs, and it filed for bankruptcy in 2004. Although Pfizer made no asbestos-containing products of its own, it had been argued that Pfizer was liable because it put its logo on some advertisements for Quigley products, identifying both companies as manufacturers of the asbestos-containing products. In 2008, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York enjoined the claims, saying that Pfizer's alleged liability arose from its ownership of Quigley, and that the claims must be channeled toward the trust created out of the bankruptcy. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York reversed the bankruptcy court, and the Second Circuit affirmed. Pfizer says that if the Second Circuit's ruling stands, corporate parents will be discouraged from contributing the funds needed to make § 524(g) trusts effective for compensating asbestos victims.
