Gordon & Rees Philadelphia partners William P. Shelley, Jacob C. Cohn, and Joseph A. Arnold recently co-authored a law review article titled “The Need for Further Transparency Between the Tort System and Section 524(g) Asbestos Trusts, 2014 Update – Judicial and Legislative Developments and Other Changes in the Landscape Since 2008.” Published in the June Widener Law Journal, the new analysis updates the trio’s 2008 article that discussed the disconnect between the tort system and 524(g) asbestos trusts established to address liabilities of former asbestos tort defendants reorganized through bankruptcy.
“The need for disclosure requirements and their vigilant enforcement has by no means diminished. Notwithstanding efforts by the plaintiffs' bar to portray the abuses unmasked in Kananian as an isolated situation, instances of trust claiming abuses and efforts to hide trust claiming histories from tort system defendants continue to be exposed,” the authors wrote.
“Beyond the specific abuses of the asbestos claiming process, the revelations in Garlock and other cases raise fundamental questions about the integrity of a litigation process in which false claiming testimony has become widespread.”
Shelley co-chairs Gordon & Rees’s Insurance Practice Group and serves as managing partner of the Philadelphia office. His practice involves complex contract litigation, including multiparty insurance coverage litigation throughout the United States focusing on asbestos and other toxic torts, life sciences and medical risk coverages as well as advertising injury and extra-contractual claims.
Cohn has more than 25 years of trial and appellate experience in state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He represents clients in high-stakes cases and has won precedent-setting results for clients in areas including insurance coverage, class action defense, bankruptcy, civil rights, and constitutional law.
Arnold handles commercial litigation, with an emphasis on contract disputes and insurance coverage. He represents insurance companies in first and third-party coverage disputes involving food contamination and product recall, asbestos and other long-tail environmental claims, large-scale construction defect claims, professional liability claims, and advertising injury claims.
To read the law review article, click here.
To learn more about the Philadelphia office, click here.