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Simon, Lindsey D
The Yale law journal, 02/2022, Volume: 131, Issue: 4Journal Article
Grifters take advantage of situations, latching on to others for benefits they do not deserve. Bankruptcy has many desirable benefits, especially for mass-tort defendants. Bankruptcy provides a centralized proceeding for resolving claims and a forum of last resort for many companies to aggregate and resolve mass-tort liability. For the debtor-defendant, this makes sense. A bankruptcy court's tremendous power represents a well-considered balance between debtors who have a limited amount of money and many claimants seeking payment. But courts have also allowed the Bankruptcy Code's mechanisms to be used by solvent, nondebtor companies and individuals facing mass-litigation exposure. These "bankruptcy grifters" act as parasites, receiving many of the substantive and procedural benefits of a host bankruptcy, but incurring only a fraction of the associated burdens. In exchange for the protections of bankruptcy, a debtor incurs the reputational cost and substantial scrutiny mandated by the bankruptcy process. Bankruptcy grifters do not. This dynamic has become evident in a number of recent, high-profile bankruptcies filed in the wake of pending mass-tort litigation, such as the Purdue Pharma and USA Gymnastics suits. This article is the first to call attention to the growing prevalence of bankruptcy grifters in mass-tort cases. By charting the progression of non-debtor relief from asbestos and product-liability bankruptcies to cases arising out of the opioid epidemic and sex-abuse scandals, this article explains how courts allowed piecemeal expansion to fundamentally change the scope of bankruptcy protections. This article proposes specific procedural and substantive safeguards that would deter bankruptcy-grifter opportunism and increase transparency, thereby protecting victims as well as the bankruptcy process.
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