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October 31, 2005
name='1'>Court
Denies Liability for Second-hand Asbestos Exposure
An employer may not
be held
liable for a nonemployee spouse’s secondhand exposure to
asbestos, the court
of appeals held Thursday in reversing an appellate panel, the New
York Law
Journal reported today. By a 6-0 vote, the court concluded that
the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey owed no duty of care to a woman
who was
allegedly injured through laundering her husband’s
asbestos-contaminated clothing
for 30 years. The ruling, which reversed the Appellate Division, 1st
Department,
comes as great relief to business groups that had implored the court
to overturn
the midlevel panel, and as a great disappointment to advocates seeking
to open
a new avenue of relief to mesothelioma victims injured through
secondhand contact
with asbestos.
href='http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1130499500010'>Read
more.
Credit
Counseling
id='2'>Can
Counseling Prevent Bankruptcy?
There are
differences of
opinion about how helpful the new BAPCPA-required counseling will be.
Consumer
advocates who opposed toughening the bankruptcy law say the required
counseling
doesn’t come at the right time.
href='http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunherald/business/13033577.htm'>Read
the full story.
id='3'>New
Bankruptcy Law Boosts Credit Counseling
Western New Yorkers
filing
for bankruptcy must now choose between seven approved credit
counseling agencies
before going to court—but all are heavily funded by creditors,
and only
one has local offices, the Buffalo News said yesterday.
Consumer Credit
Counseling Service of Buffalo, based in West Seneca, received
government approval
last week to offer prefiling counseling to debtors in western New York
considering
bankruptcy. That means that the agency’s staff is now
authorized, under a new
federal law, to sit down with consumers to educate them about
bankruptcy, look
at their finances and how they got into trouble, and inform them of
alternatives
before they are allowed to file with the court.
href='http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20051030/1048810.asp'>Read
more.
id='4'>Delphi
Rattles Salaried Ranks
Fear, angst and
helplessness
run deep among Delphi’s 16,000 white-collar employees and
engineers in Kokomo,
Ind., and the company’s other major U.S. hubs, the Detroit
News reported
yesterday. As Delphi battles the United Auto Workers and other unions
to lower
pay and benefits, the fate of the parts maker’s salaried workers
has been nearly
overlooked. Delphi Chairman and CEO Robert S. Miller said Friday that
he does
not expect pay cuts for salaried workers, but he wouldn’t
promise all U.S. engineers
will keep their jobs. Workers, most of whom asked that their names not
be published,
pointed to a statement Miller made earlier this month: "As we
shrink our
business and become more productive, we might have fewer salaried
workers going
forward."
href='http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0510/30/A01-365848.htm'>Read
the full story.
id='5'>McLeodUSA
Files Second Bankruptcy
McLeodUSA filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy again last week, hoping
to emerge
with new ownership and $677 million less debt, WHO-TV reported
yesterday.
The Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based telecommunications company has
struggled with
regaining profitability even after filing for bankruptcy in 2002,
which erased
about $3 billion in debt. The latest filing gives some breathing
room to the
company, with $27 million cash available. The company lists slightly
more
than $1 billion in debts and $674 million in assets. It has a
commitment for
$50 million in financing. McLeodUSA says that it is selling its
Technology
Park headquarters in Cedar Rapids to Life Investors Insurance
Company of America.
It will move about 850 employees to a leased building in Hiawatha
early next
year.
In other news, McLeodUSA filed a motion seeking U.S. Bankruptcy
Court approval
to retain Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom as counsel at the
following
hourly rates: partners/of counsel at $585-835, counsel/special
counsel at
$560-640, associates at $295-540, and legal assistants/support staff
at $90-230;
and Logan & Company as noticing agent, BankruptcyData.com
reported today.
id='6'>Ex-judge’s
Rebuff Upsets Trustee
Eight days after
former Kansas
City municipal judge Deborah A. Neal reported to prison, the
bankruptcy trustee
in her recent chapter 7 filing accused Neal of not cooperating, the
Kansas
City Star reported Saturday. The trustee, Erlene Krigel,
asked a
judge last week to compel Neal’s compliance and said that she
may ask
the bankruptcy court to revoke its elimination of Neal’s debts.
Neal filed
for chapter 7 bankruptcy May 19, two weeks after she pleaded guilty to
mail
fraud and acknowledged improperly borrowing money from lawyers. She
resigned
from the bench in November after admitting that she had a gambling
addiction
and had accepted nearly $36,000 in loans from lawyers, including some
who appeared
before her in court. Read
more.
Airlines
id='7'>Airline’s
Advisers Submit Hefty Tab
US Airways’
bankruptcy case
was a boon for lawyers and consultants, who stand to collect roughly
$57 million
from the airline, the Charlotte Observer reported today.
href='http://www.sunherald.com/mld/charlotte/business/13027687.htm'>Read
the full story.
id='8'>Midwest
Air Could Benefit from Northwest Bankruptcy
Oak Creek,
Wisc.-based Midwest
Air is likely to benefit from Northwest’s decision to eliminate
non-stop service
to four cities from Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International
Airport, Midwest
spokeswoman Carol Skornicka said, as reported by the Minnesota
Business Journal
today. Northwest, based in Eagan, Minn., is dropping non-stop runs to
Boston,
Denver, Kansas City and Toronto today. Midwest also likely will
benefit from
traffic growth at Mitchell International, Skornicka said. More people
are flying
out of Mitchell, particularly travelers who may have used
Chicago’s O’Hare International
Airport, she said. Midwest, the parent company of Midwest Airlines and
Skyway
Airlines, has struggled to turn a profit since 2001. The firm was
facing delisting
from the New York Stock Exchange, so it moved to the American Stock
Exchange
Sept. 23.
id='9'>Delta
Mutes Song Amid Bankruptcy
Delta will close
its low-fare
Song service, created two years ago to take on discount carriers, as
part of
its bankruptcy reorganization, Bloomberg News reported Saturday. The
airline
will adopt features of the unit, such as leather seats and seat-back
televisions,
on some of its most-traveled routes. Song will stop flying as a
separate brand
after May 2006, Delta said. Song was Delta’s latest attempt in a
decade-long
effort to compete with discounters along the East Coast, such as
Southwest Airlines
and JetBlue. Song replaced Delta Express, which was created in 1996 to
offer
lower fares to vacation travelers. Delta never separated Song’s
results to show
whether it was profitable.
href='http://www.nydailynews.com/business/v-pfriendly/story/360191p-306882c.h…'>Read
more.
id='10'>"Pimped"
SUVs to Pooper Scooper: Auction for Defrauded Louisiana Nuns
A man accused of
scamming
almost $3.7 million from an order of nuns added so many extras to some
of his
cars and SUVs that it’s hard to set a value on them for a
bankruptcy auction,
the Associated Press reported Saturday. A Jaguar XJ8, a Cadillac
Escalade and
several Chevrolet Avalanches headline more than 40 cars, trucks and
other vehicles
confiscated from Woodrow Hayes Jr. after he was indicted on fraud
charges. One
SUV has ostrich-leather seats, each inset with almost an entire
alligator hide.
It also has three amplifiers for its sound system, and a backup camera
with
a monitor in a front mirror. Most of the vehicles, including more than
a dozen
Ford Crown Victorias, are far more modest, with minimum on-line
absentee bids
of $25 posted on the company’s Web site. That’s also the
minimum bid for Lot
No. 1058: "Pooper Scooper, Weed Wacker, and a Hammer." But
for the
Jaguar, the minimum is $27,500.
href='http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-20/1130615…'>Read
more.
id='11'>ATA
Holdings Extension Motion Filed
Documents were
filed or the
ATA Holdings case seeking approval to extend the confirmation period
for the
reorganization plan to Jan. 30, 2006, BankrupcyData.com reported
today. The
company remains engaged in arranging for new capital from a "new
investor"
as referenced in the plan and disclosure statement.
id='12'>Able
Lab Purchase Agreement Announced
Able Laboratories
announced
that it had entered into an asset purchase agreement with Aurobindo
Pharma USA
for the company to sell substantially all of its assets to Aurobindo
and for
Aurobindo to assume the company’s unexpired lease for its
premises located in
New Jersey and a limited number of its executory contracts,
BankruptcyData.com
reported today. The agreement contemplates the company commencing an
auction
of its assets. The company also announced on Oct. 21 taht the U.S.
Bankruptcy
Court approved its motion to approve auction procedures for the
company to solicit
higher and better bids than the bid reflected in the Aurobindo
agreement. The
court scheduled a final hearing to consider the approval of the
company’s sale
of its assets and the assumption and assignment of contracts under
§§363
and 365 of the Bankruptcy Code for Nov. 7.