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She had so much to offer. Settlements vs profits. That is all we have, so the higher the settlements, the safer we are.
Rich companies are using a quiet tactic to block lawsuits: bankruptcy
April 2, 20227:00 AM ET
A few months before she died in February at age 27, Hanna Wilt was living at her mom's home on the New Jersey shore.
"I'm tired and I'm very very bloated," she said. "I get fluid buildup in my belly."
It was a sunny morning, the living room filled with light that caught in Wilt's yellow hair, but she was having a tough day.
She sat in a big stuffed chair, hunched forward holding her stomach. "Essentially you starve to death, is the nature of this disease," Wilt said.
Wilt was a college athlete, a CrossFit instructor and an avid horseback rider. Then at age 22 she felt the first symptoms of an aggressive form of cancer called mesothelioma.
"It was really, really weird," Wilt recalled. "I started not being able to walk right."
Now, after years of unsuccessful treatment, she was terrified by the rapid advance of her illness. But along with the fear, Wilt also voiced outrage and frustration.
Her lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, the company she blamed for making her sick, had been abruptly blocked a few weeks earlier.
"What I see is who can play the game best," Wilt said. "Big corporations trying to work the system in a way that they don't have to take full responsibility is nothing new."
Johnson & Johnson, which is headquartered in New Jersey, is valued at more than $400 billion. But in October 2021, the company used a controversial legal maneuver in bankruptcy court to freeze Wilt's case along with thousands of others.
The company had faced some 38,000 lawsuits claiming that trace amounts of asbestos contamination in Johnson's baby powder caused ovarian cancer and mesothelioma.
"I would use it every day, sometimes a couple times a day to be comfortable in the summer," Wilt said of J&J's talcum powder...
Rich companies are using a quiet tactic to block lawsuits: bankruptcy
April 2, 20227:00 AM ET
A few months before she died in February at age 27, Hanna Wilt was living at her mom's home on the New Jersey shore.
"I'm tired and I'm very very bloated," she said. "I get fluid buildup in my belly."
It was a sunny morning, the living room filled with light that caught in Wilt's yellow hair, but she was having a tough day.
She sat in a big stuffed chair, hunched forward holding her stomach. "Essentially you starve to death, is the nature of this disease," Wilt said.
Wilt was a college athlete, a CrossFit instructor and an avid horseback rider. Then at age 22 she felt the first symptoms of an aggressive form of cancer called mesothelioma.
"It was really, really weird," Wilt recalled. "I started not being able to walk right."
Now, after years of unsuccessful treatment, she was terrified by the rapid advance of her illness. But along with the fear, Wilt also voiced outrage and frustration.
Her lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, the company she blamed for making her sick, had been abruptly blocked a few weeks earlier.
"What I see is who can play the game best," Wilt said. "Big corporations trying to work the system in a way that they don't have to take full responsibility is nothing new."
Johnson & Johnson, which is headquartered in New Jersey, is valued at more than $400 billion. But in October 2021, the company used a controversial legal maneuver in bankruptcy court to freeze Wilt's case along with thousands of others.
The company had faced some 38,000 lawsuits claiming that trace amounts of asbestos contamination in Johnson's baby powder caused ovarian cancer and mesothelioma.
"I would use it every day, sometimes a couple times a day to be comfortable in the summer," Wilt said of J&J's talcum powder...
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