Pfizer Inc.'s bankrupt Quigley Co. unit will continue its eight-year bankruptcy, and seeks to challenge a federal appeals court ruling, a Pfizer lawyer said, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Jay Goffman told Bankruptcy Judge Stuart Bernstein yesterday that Pfizer may challenge a higher court's ruling in April that found Pfizer is not entitled to protection from some asbestos claims related to Quigley. Pfizer also plans to proceed with Quigley's bankruptcy, and seeks to have it exit court protection in September. Quigley, founded in 1916, made three products for the steel industry from the 1940s to the 1970s that contained asbestos. Pfizer bought Quigley in 1968, and the company stopped most operations in 1992, filing for bankruptcy in 2004. Pfizer has said that it never made or sold any Quigley products, and some claimants had not released Pfizer from alleged "derivative liability." Judge Bernstein had ruled in bankruptcy court that Quigley's chapter 11 case barred certain lawsuits against Pfizer. A May 2011 decision in district court reversed the order, and Pfizer had appealed that ruling.
