A federal judge refused on Friday to recuse himself from the New Orleans Roman Catholic bankruptcy after an Associated Press report that he donated tens of thousands of dollars to archdiocese charities and consistently ruled in favor of the church in the contentious case involving nearly 500 clergy sex abuse victims. U.S. District Judge Greg Guidry told attorneys in the high-profile case that a panel of federal judges he asked to review the possible conflict determined no “reasonable person” would question his impartiality despite his contributions and longstanding ties to the archdiocese. Judge Guidry read from the opinion of the Washington-based Committee on Codes of Conduct, which noted that none of the charities he donated to “has been or is an actual party” in the bankruptcy and that Judge Guidry’s eight years on the board of the archdiocese’s charitable arm ended more than a decade before the bankruptcy. “Based upon that advice and based upon my certainty that I can be fair and impartial, I have decided not to recuse myself,” said Guidry, who oversees the bankruptcy in an appellate role.
A bankruptcy judge has again shielded Johnson & Johnson from jury trials in roughly 40,000 pending talc-related lawsuits, advancing the company’s second attempt to resolve mass cancer claims through the chapter 11 system, though he cautioned J&J faces an “uphill battle” ahead, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Michael Kaplan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Trenton, N.J., on Thursday extended to the healthcare-products company the same protection against talc-related trials enjoyed by its subsidiary LTL Management LLC, a vehicle created by J&J to carry its talc-related liabilities into chapter 11. The freeze on jury trials will last through mid-June while LTL moves through bankruptcy, Judge Kaplan said. His ruling marks the second time he has frozen jury trials in tort litigation alleging that J&J’s talc products cause cancer, which the company denies. The judge granted similar protections to J&J after LTL’s initial entry into chapter 11 in 2021 to give the company breathing room to negotiate with talc claimants and their lawyers on a settlement plan. A federal appeals court threw out that bankruptcy case this month, but LTL filed for bankruptcy again hours later, this time with a settlement offer supported by some plaintiffs’ law firms. That offer, valued at $8.9 billion, would rank among the largest tort settlements ever if accepted.
Reversing the Second Circuit, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion today in MOAC Mall Holdings LLC, deciding that Section 363(m) is not jurisdictional. It’s a limitation on the remedy available to an appellate court on an appeal from an order approving a sale, according to a special edition of Rochelle's Daily Wire. Section 363(m) says that the reversal or modification “of an authorization under subsection (b) or (c) of this section of a sale or lease of property does not affect the validity of a sale or lease [to a purchaser in good faith] . . . unless such authorization and such sale or lease were stayed pending appeal.” The Second and Fifth Circuits have held that Section 363(m) is jurisdictional. The Third, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits have held that it is not. The opinion for the Court by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was her first since her elevation in June 2022.
