Reuters news service interviewed Steven Kazan, the lead attorney appealing the Energy Future Holdings bankruptcy, for comments on EFH’s response to the appeal. The appeal argues that EFH’s bankruptcy is unlawful because it set a deadline for filing claims for asbestos-related illnesses, even if people exposed to asbestos had not yet been become sick.
EFH called the appeal “moot,” but Kazan says no other bankruptcy court has made such a requirement, and that other bankruptcies with asbestos claims have set up a trust fund.
“If the current ruling is upheld on appeal, it would set an unfortunate precedent,” Kazan says. “It would provide a clear path for asbestos defendants to eliminate the rights of their victims to recover compensation for fatal cancers that will develop over the next 50 years from past asbestos exposures.”
Read the full Reuters story here.