The judge overseeing the bankruptcy case of Johnson & Johnson ’s longtime talc supplier disqualified the decisive ballots cast in favor of a cancer-victim compensation plan, ruling that most of one law firm’s asbestos-injury clients had no basis to vote.
Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., threw into doubt the chapter 11 plan put forth by the defunct supplier Imerys Talc America Inc., saying that more than 15,700 ballots cast in its favor by personal injury lawyer Thomas Bevan can’t be included in the vote totals.
