Johnson & Johnson has been in bankruptcy court arguing that even though they make billions of dollars a year, they’re totally bankrupt. We can’t pay out thousands of claims against them. But US bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez says, no, you’re not bankrupt, this is ridiculous.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Caleb Cunningham: Hi, and welcome to America’s Lawyer. I’m your host, Caleb Cunningham. But before we begin, I want to address something that’s near and dear to my heart, Pap. Pap has been hosting this show for 21 years. He’s led it to the great titan that it is. He has for almost a quarter century held corporations accountable, all while writing novels, raising a family, and leading one of the most significant firms in this country. He’s stepping away from America’s Lawyer and he’s got some exciting projects that we look forward to telling you about in the future, whether it be interviewing a celebrity or coming out with one of his new novels like Middleman, we will keep you updated on Pap’s, comings and goings, but we thank you for being a loyal viewer and we look forward to the future together.
Farron, what you got for me today?
Farron Cousins: We’ve got a lot of great stuff. I think we got to start, obviously, Johnson & Johnson. Now this is a story Pap and I had been covering for years, almost a decade, maybe a little more. We finally have a little bit of resolution to that. Johnson & Johnson, as you know and as Pap and I have discussed, they’d been in bankruptcy court arguing that even though we make billions of dollars a year, we’re totally bankrupt. We can’t pay out all these 60,000 claims, I think, still against them. We’re going to give these people pennies compared to what they’re actually owed and we’re just going to be bankrupt.
Caleb Cunningham: And it’s interesting because you have one of the largest corporations on Earth that has a GDP more than most countries that make a fake company, put all the bad stuff in the fake company and it’s the most abusive thing I’ve seen of the bankruptcy code. And it’s dangerous for all of us because it deprives them of, there’s no jury trial in bankruptcy court and you can limit the liability if you’re them. It’s shocking to me its taken this long and the judge said, no, in a very long opinion.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. So that is, obviously what everybody on the right side of the law had hoped for, but it’s not something a lot of us even really expected because, especially down in Texas where they filed this, where they’re not even based, but they moved it to Texas because Texas is the most friendly business court system in the country and said, look, we can get this done. We’ve watched other companies do it. But this judge, US bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez, full credit to him, he says, no, you’re not bankrupt. Essentially, this is ridiculous. Why are we even here to have this conversation? This is not going to happen and the judge dug even deeper because he says, it’s not just that you are not bankrupt, you have corrupted this entire system. You tell me that you got the votes from the plaintiffs. And they said, yes, we’re okay with this settlement. No, they’re not. There were all kinds of problems the judge pointed out. And as you pointed out, that very, very long decision where the judge says, listen, you had lawyers voting for clients without consulting with them. You pressured them. You gave them the smallest possible timeframe to vote on these settlements to where the lawyers couldn’t consult with their clients. This is not acceptable in any way. We’re not doing it. Which again, absolutely wonderful for these victims and Johnson & Johnson says, we’re not going to appeal it. We’re not going to try again. I guess we’re done with bankruptcy court. This was the third time
Caleb Cunningham: I was just fixing to say, let’s not give them too much credit here because it took three times to get here. Twice in New Jersey, I believe, and then once in Texas. So you’ve literally spanned the country of judges telling you, no, before they said, okay, we won’t appeal. And unfortunately, we laugh about it, but these women are dying. Every day that goes by, every day that Johnson & Johnson drags it’s feet with these legal fictions to escape liability, more victims die waiting for their day in court. This was a way for them to avoid that and to manipulate a system that quite frankly needs to be changed.
Farron Cousins: Absolutely. And I like that you pointed out New Jersey because outside of Texas, probably one of the most friendly bankruptcy jurisdictions you can go to is New Jersey. Texas has just become more friendly over the years and they’ve now got their own business court system that Greg Abbott has set up to be even more business friendly. But Johnson & Johnson doesn’t get to play by those rules now. The lawyers handling these cases, which I know your firm also is doing this, they say right now, full steam ahead. We’re not going to postpone this. We’re not going to let them do any other shenanigans. We’re moving forward. We’re going to get trials going because so far, correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t Johnson & Johnson lost almost all, if not all of these cases?
Caleb Cunningham: My understanding is they are. When this goes to a jury of US citizens and they sit in a box and they hear the evidence, they don’t like what they hear and Johnson & Johnson tried to take that away with this bankruptcy proceeding. And thank God for these judges that they failed.
