Asbestos Lawsuits Lead To Bankruptcy
According to recent news a company in St. Louis, Missouri has filed for bankruptcy due to a mounting number of asbestos-related lawsuits that have been filed against the company. Christy Refractories Co. LLC filed the chapter 11 in a St. Louis bankruptcy court sometime last week.
The company has stated that they hope to find a better way to manage the liabilities it has regarding the lawsuits filed against them. The lawsuits have to do with not recent products that the company has made but heat-resistant products that the company produced over ten years ago.
The manager of Christy Refractories, Frank O’ Brien, has reported that the company is settling cases at an average of approximately $1 Million a month and those numbers are expected to increase significantly. O’Brien is estimating that there are at least a thousand more cases pending.
Involved in the lawsuits are individuals who allegedly worked with the company’s products in steel mills, or other industrial or commercial sites as well as those that may have been exposed to the asbestos containing materials at schools.
According to the company’s manager one result of the bankruptcy filing will be a trust fund set up for the alleged victims of exposure of an amount to be decided by the bankruptcy court. The trust fund, though, will contain at the very least $18 Million as reported by O’Brien. Reorganization of Christy Refractories is expected to take at least one year.