The personal injury lawyers repeatedly painted as the villains in Garlock Sealing Technologies' chapter 11 case are hitting back, claiming that the company is in fact the one withholding evidence, the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle reported today. The asbestos personal injury claimants’ committee last week filed a motion in bankruptcy court asking Judge George Hodges to revisit a ruling early this year about Garlock's financial obligations to people suffering from asbestos-related health claims. "Garlock has committed a fraud upon the court," the committee wrote in a memorandum supporting its motion, claiming that the Palmyra company cherry-picked evidence that it presented to Hodges — the same legal chicanery Garlock has accused attorneys of. The fight revolves around a ruling by Judge Hodges in January that the company would likely have to pay no more than $125 million to settle any current and future mesothelioma claims against it — mesothelioma being a rare cancer of the lining around the lungs. A pair of bankruptcy committees of attorneys representing plaintiffs or future plaintiffs against Garlock had argued for a figure in excess of $1 billion. The Wayne County gasket and seal maker has been a defendant in literally thousands of asbestos-related lawsuits dating back decades. But when it filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June 2010, it cited a recent wave of substantial verdicts against it in mesothelioma cases. In his January ruling, Judge Hodges said that Garlock had demonstrated that numerous other manufacturers were almost surely far more responsible for any mesothelioma cases than would have come from the relatively small doses of low potency asbestos once associated with Garlock's seals and gaskets. He also was particularly condemning of plaintiff legal tactics, writing that as a number of other large thermal insulation companies went bankrupt, and attorneys began suing Garlock more, "evidence of plaintiffs' exposure to other asbestos products often disappeared (and) certain plaintiffs' law firms used this control over the evidence to drive up the settlements demanded of Garlock."
