David Chizewer Quoted in "Asbestos Defendant Seeking Sanctions in Madison Co. Argues It Was Named ‘Only to Harass,’ and for ‘Settlement Ransom’"
David Chizewer, principal in the firm's Litigation Group, is quoted in "Asbestos Defendant Seeking Sanctions in Madison Co. Argues It Was Named ‘Only to Harass,’ and for ‘Settlement Ransom’," published in the Aug. 29, 2017, edition of the Madison - St. Clair Record.
The article concerns an ongoing asbestos suit in Madison County, Ill., filed by the Gori Julian firm against more than 100 companies. Avocet Enterprises, represented by Mr. Chizewer, wants the Fifth District to sanction Gori Julian under a Supreme Court rule requiring a complaint to be well grounded in fact.
Said Mr. Chizewer: “Plaintiff named Avocet without any good faith basis, intending only to harass Avocet into a decision to settle the case rather than incurring the fees and costs to defend. Plaintiff completely failed to provide any facts whatsoever from which one could infer that Avocet was responsible for plaintiff’s asbestos exposure. This failure was not an innocent oversight.”
He said that Gori Julian added Avocet to suits by “a habit, if not an addiction.” “Plaintiff’s counsel has sued Avocet in more than 400 similar cases and, like this case, all but four of those cases resulted in dismissal without liability and without a single dollar in settlement payments,” Chizewer said.
He alleged “a conscious and repeated effort to hold Avocet hostage to the byzantine world of asbestos litigation and to then seek its settlement ransom.” Defending baseless suits has cost Avocet $720,000.
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