Our Role In National Legislation: How We Made a Difference
Going to the Supreme Court
Baron and Budd led the fight for victims’ rights in two landmark victories, Amchem Products v. Windsor and Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., which are widely recognized as two of the most important appellate decisions of the past decade for consumer rights.
Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 526 U.S. 815, 119 S. Ct. 2295 (1999) was one of the last decisions handed down by the United States Supreme Court in 1999. The Court’s seven to two decision was given after months of fierce debate over whether all future claims by people who developed illnesses related to asbestos exposure should be handled as a class action, allowing the asbestos companies to settle all future asbestos claims for minimal values before most victims even knew they had a claim.
Baron and Budd fought the class action concept vigorously. In fact, Baron and Budd led the charge to throw out the Fiberboard mandatory class action settlement that would have severely limited the rights of people to pursue individual claims based on the severity of their specific illness and specific circumstances of their exposure.
Writing on behalf of the Court, Justice Souter questioned the fairness of the settlement because, if allowed to go forward, Fiberboard would essentially have a “get out of jail free card.” Fiberboard would have been able to settle all asbestos claims, including all future claims, with only $500,000 of the company’s own money, thus retaining virtually all of its net worth at the expense of the victims of its asbestos-containing products.
The Ortiz decision corroborated an earlier Supreme Court decision in which Baron and Budd also fought for victims’ rights: Amchem Products v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 117 S. Ct. 2231, 138 L.Ed2d 689 (1997).
Achieving this success was not an easy task. Baron and Budd fought against powerful interest groups and, surprisingly, against some other plaintiffs’ law firms who were willing to trade future victims’ rights for a quick pay day.
Establishing Bankruptcy Trusts
Over the last decade, Baron and Budd has played a significant national role in protecting the rights of people injured by exposure to asbestos. As chair and member of several asbestos creditors’ bankruptcy committees, Baron and Budd President and Managing Shareholder Russell Budd has successfully resolved over 100,000 victims’ claims with some of Wall Street’s biggest companies. Budd was also the chief negotiator of a $4 billion national settlement with Halliburton that established the largest asbestos trust fund of its kind anywhere in the world to protect present and future asbestos victims. He was on the committee that negotiated a $3.9 billion settlement with United States Gypsum to benefit asbestos claimants. Budd also participated in the negotiations that led W.R. Grace to agree to fund a bankruptcy trust on behalf of asbestos claimants with nearly $3 billion in cash and stock equity.
