ANALYSIS: Beginning of the End for Mass Tort Maneuvers?

The Third Circuit’s recent decision ordering the dismissal of the LTL Management bankruptcy case raises doubts about the future of the Texas Two-Step. But what does the ruling—and two other cases with appeals pending—mean for other mass tort maneuvers favored by debtors in Chapter 11?

In my 2023 outlook, I discussed three Chapter 11 mass tort maneuvers that were on appeal: the Texas Two-Step (the LTL case); extending the automatic stay to nondebtor affiliates (on appeal with the Seventh Circuit in the Aearo case), and nonconsensual nondebtor releases (on appeal with the Second Circuit in the Purdue Pharma ...