US asbestos law firm defeats racketeering lawsuit by PVC pipe maker JM Eagle
JM Eagle failed to show that law firm Simmons Hanly Conroy and the asbestos plaintiffs, witnesses and other groups the firm works with were operating as an enterprise under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman said, opens new tab in his Tuesday ruling.
With the two federal RICO counts dismissed, Gettleman said he was also dismissing JM Eagle's remaining state law claims against the law firm.
JM Eagle and its attorneys at Steptoe LLP did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Simmons Hanly in a statement praised the decision for dismissing what it called a "baseless and retaliatory" lawsuit. The firm said it would "not be intimidated by unwarranted legal attacks designed to smear its reputation and derail its pursuit of justice for victims of asbestos exposure."
JM Eagle, which calls itself the world's largest plastic and PVC pipe manufacturer, was previously known as J-M Manufacturing. The company said it sold "a limited amount" of cement pipes that contained asbestos from 1983 to 1988.
JM Eagle had accused Simmons Hanly of suppressing evidence, using perjured or falsified testimony and statements, and committing fraud in the course of recovering billions of dollars from asbestos defendants in thousands of cases.
The plastic pipe maker said Simmons Hanly has filed more than 430 cases against JM Eagle since 2001, with more than 75 of them settling. The law firm's website said Tuesday it has recovered more than $10.2 billion from defendants in asbestos cases nationwide.
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Reuters
2 hours ago
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UK police arrest more than 365 at protest for banned Palestine Action group
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Reuters
4 hours ago
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Insight: How a CIA hit on al Qaeda ensnared a US citizen in Afghanistan
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Scottish Sun
5 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Russia is running ‘slave catalogue' of Ukrainian ‘orphans' with kidnapped children ‘treated like animals'
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) RUSSIA is allegedly running a grotesque online "slave catalogue" of abducted Ukrainian children in occupied territory. The profiles can be searched by hair colour, eye colour and even "personality" in the latest twisted move by Mad Vlad Putin's regime. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 9 Russia is reportedly running a twisted online 'slave catalogue' of abducted Ukrainian children Credit: Reuters 9 Children from an orphanage in the Donetsk region, eat a meal at a camp in Zolotaya Kosa, the settlement on the Sea of Azov, Rostov region, southwestern Russia Credit: AP 9 Ukrainian officials previously warned its children are being trained up to fight in Putin's army Credit: Bring Kids Back Ukraine According to the NGO Save Ukraine, it features almost 300 children labelled as "orphans" or "left without parental care". But campaigners insist many were forcibly taken from their families, re-registered under Russian documents and are now being "matched" with Russian families as if they were animals in a pet shop. Mykola Kuleba, head of Save Ukraine, described it as 'digital trafficking' and a 'slave catalogue'. He warned: "This is not adoption. This is not care. This is digital child trafficking, masked as bureaucracy. "These children are not 'war orphans'. They had names, families and Ukrainian citizenship." According to The Times, the depraved search tool reportedly allows users to filter children by age, gender, health and physical traits - even by whether they are "calm" or "active". The portal is run by Luhansk's so-called Ministry of Education and Science — part of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), a Russian-installed regime in territory internationally recognised as Ukrainian. While some of the children listed were born after Russia seized the area in 2014, Kuleba says most were born before occupation and held Ukrainian citizenship. Kyiv says the catalogue is just the latest stage in Moscow's mass child-snatching campaign — a programme that Ukrainian officials claim has seen tens of thousands of minors abducted since Putin's full-scale invasion in 2022. Yale researchers, UN experts and legal bodies have said the deportations could amount to war crimes. Nazi lies, Vlad's propaganda & troops on border… chilling signs Putin ready to invade ANOTHER European nation after Ukraine In 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and his children's commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, over the illegal transfer and adoption of Ukrainian children. Russia has long defended these relocations as "humanitarian" - but Ukrainian officials and returned captives tell a far darker story. 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Ukraine's presidential adviser Daria Zarivna has accused Putin of 'weaponising' these children, warning they are being groomed to fight for Russia in future wars. She told The Sun: 'It's a threat to global security, to Ukraine's security.' Lvova-Belova - dubbed "Putin's childcatcher" and sanctioned by Britain for her role in the abductions - has openly bragged about "adopting" a boy from Mariupol. 'I was snatched by Russian soldier' ILLIA, 11, was deported from Mariupol after a Russian missile strike killed his mother and left him with horror shrapnel wounds when he was nine. His neighbours buried his mum's body in their back garden before he was snatched by Vlad's soldiers and taken for surgery at a camp in Donestk. The shrapnel was removed without any anaesthetic and he was forced to write and speak Russian and repeat "Glory to Ukraine as part of Russia". He says Russian forces tried to turn him into a "propaganda tool" but that he is not "one to be duped so easily." Illia's grandmother had been searching for her grandson ever since losing contact with her daughter in March 2022. It wasn't until they spotted the young boy in a video from Russia that she realised he was alone and that her daughter had been killed. His grandmother never gave up hope and set about getting her injured grandson back home where he belonged. Months later, Illia returned home to Ukraine and had further surgery to remove more fragments from his leg, while 11 remain. His grandmother Olena said: "He had a school, he had a home, he had a mother and he lost all of that - his entire childhood. "He kept to himself, he was afraid of noise, he was afraid of sirens. He had no memory. He now has dreams of becoming a doctor so that he can help fighters on the frontline as a combat medic. She is accused of overseeing the heartless bureaucratic machinery that strips Ukrainian children of their identities before placing them in Russian homes. Kyiv's Bring Kids Back Ukraine initiative has so far rescued nearly 700 minors, but thousands remain missing. Officials say no peace deal will be struck with Moscow until every abducted child is returned. 'This is genocide,' said Ukraine's Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets. 'These children are not commodities. They are victims of a brutal campaign to erase our nation's future.' 9 Putin meets with Russia's Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova Credit: AFP
