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Fibreboard Asbestos Solution
As national counsel for Fibreboard Corporation Steve Snyder and his team tried, resolved or managed the defense of several hundred thousand occupational asbestos exposure injury or death claims brought against the company in courts across the United States. These trials included mass consolidations and class action trials and appeals involving thousands of claimants in courts in Texas, West Virginia, New York, and Mississippi. In its disclosures to shareholders, Fibreboard had acknowledged that it could not remain viable absent a favorable resolution of its asbestos litigation problem. After more than a decade of litigation, in 1993 Steve and his team obtained agreements from Fibreboard insurance carriers (which, to date, had denied coverage obligations) to pay in excess of $3 billion to fund a resolution of all Fibreboard’s asbestos liabilities. In 1997, after the settlement had been funded, Fibreboard’s shareholder sold the company, at full value undiminished by asbestos liabilities, to Owens Corning Inc. in a cash merger.
Later, Steve and his team represented Owens Corning as co-national counsel in defense of its asbestos litigation.
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Asbestos Mass Tort Trials
Jim Miller tried numerous cases across the country for Fibreboard, for the Members of the Asbestos Claims Facility, and for Owens Corning Corporation. He is recognized as one of the premier trial lawyers in the litigation and was selected to try some of the most challenging consolidated and mass trials of the time (the Cimino damages trials in Beaumont, Texas; the Hawaii consolidated trials, and the Baltimore consolidation).
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Class Actions and Complex Proceedings
Jim Miller served as principal trial counsel for Fibreboard Corporation in the damages phase of the Cimino consolidated asbestos trials in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Cimino v. Raymark Industries, Inc., 751 F.Supp. 649 (E.D.Tex.,1990). District Judge Robert Parker devised a plan for resolution of the 2200 asbestos cases then pending in the District. The plan involved consolidated trial of liability issues, followed by trial of the damages issues in 160 individual randomly selected cases, culminating in extrapolation of the 160 damages awards (based on statistical sampling involving disease type) and entry of judgment in all of the cases then pending in the District. The Fifth Circuit’s decision on appeal from the resulting judgments is one of the leading precedents on consolidated trial of mass tort damages claims. Cimino v. Raymark Industries, Inc., 151 F.3d 297 (5th Cir. 1998).
Jim also conducted the formative pretrial proceedings for Fibreboard Corporation in the consolidated trial of the Maryland asbestos cases before Judge Marshall Levin in Baltimore City. When Fibreboard resolved the Maryland cases on the brink of trial of the consolidated ‘liability” phase, a codefendant sought to pursue contribution claims in the remaining 8,500 Maryland asbestos cases. Those contribution claims were dismissed by the trial court and affirmed on appeal in Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Fibreboard Corp., 620 A.2d 979 (Md.App.,1993).
Jim litigated the seminal California decision on the application of the statute of limitations to class members, Guenter v. Lomas & Nettleton Co., 189 Cal. Rptr. 470 (1983), and litigated judicially required use of coordinating counsel in complex litigation. Asbestos Claims Facility v. Berry & Berry, 219 Cal. App. 3d 9, 267 Cal. Rptr. 896 (1990).
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Western MacArthur Bankruptcy Recovery
Mac Arthur Co. and Western Mac Arthur Co. are privately held major suppliers and installers of Johns-Manville asbestos-containing insulating products in the Mid-west and West until the 1970’s when asbestos was removed from most such products. In the early 1990’s both companies faced extinction because of billions of dollars of potential asbestos litigation liabilities. Steve Snyder and his team negotiated an arrangement with counsel for asbestos plaintiffs to forbear prosecuting claims against either company to allow the companies time to prosecute insurance coverage claims against insurers which had refused coverage. After almost a decade of coverage litigation, Steve and his team negotiated settlements with insurers providing over $2 billion in insurance coverage as part of a settlement of all present and future asbestos claims against either company. The settlements called for court approval of settlement terms in a Chapter 11 proceeding in which shareholders retained virtually all operating capital and equity. The bankruptcy court approved that settlement in February 2004.
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Lead Paint Mass Tort Litigation
Jim Miller represented Devoe Paints, an affiliate of Grow Group, Inc. in the lead paint litigation. Devoe was successfully extricated from the litigation on findings that “market share” liability could not be attached to the makers of lead based paint. See, e.g., Swartzbauer v. Lead Industries Ass'n, Inc., 794 F.Supp. 142 (E.D.Pa.,1992).
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Mentor Corporation Breast Implant Litigation
Mentor Corporation, a small, publicly-held medical device manufacturer headquartered in Goleta, California, was one of several companies being sued in litigation involving silicone gel breast and other implants. Steve Snyder and his team represented Mentor in defense of its cases and pursuing its insurance coverage. After two years Mentor obtained a class action judgment releasing it from the litigation while others were required to defend cases in the litigation for a decade.
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