J&J talc unit case dismissal appeals will go to the Third Circuit

By Sarah Lizee

Olympia, Wash., March 31 – The court overseeing Johnson & Johnson subsidiary LTL Management LLC’s bankruptcy case is allowing appeals of its decision not to dismiss the case to go directly to the Third Circuit.

Two talc claimant committees requested certification from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey to appeal its Feb. 25 order denying motions to dismiss the case, as previously reported.

At a Wednesday hearing, the court said it would enter into an order approving the certification.

“We’re talking about billions upon billions of dollars and thousands upon tens of thousands of potential claimants, all of which I think warrants the opportunity for the circuit to address these issues at this juncture in the short term,” Judge Michael B. Kaplan said at the hearing.

LTL had objected to the certification requests, saying the claimants had identified no grounds for taking the appeals to the Third Circuit, because the New Jersey bankruptcy court already applied settled, controlling Third Circuit precedent on “bad faith” dismissals to the detailed facts of LTL’s case.

Johnson & Johnson is a consumer products company based in New Brunswick, N.J. The LTL Management subsidiary filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Oct. 14 under case number 21-30589.

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