Justin B. Taylor

Pension tussle taking center stage in Yellow bankruptcy

Yellow Corp.’s bankruptcy case is progressing on several fronts—but not yet on the one with the biggest dollar amounts at play.

In recent weeks, Yellow attorneys exchanged filings with their peers at the Central States Pension Fund and the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware about how to resolve the question of the company’s remaining pension obligations. Yellow, which was the sixth-ranked carrier on the 2023 FleetOwner 500: For Hire list before it shut down in July, claimed in December that the PBGC’s early-2023 bailout of Central States meant the pension plan couldn’t then also claim billions from Yellow.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters-affiliated Central States asked Yellow last summer to cover nearly $5 billion in withdrawal liabilities (the company’s alleged share of unfunded benefits) and another $900 million in so-called participation guarantees. Yellow called those claims an attempt to collect “hundreds of millions of dollars in damages it has not sustained” and said pension officials were asking for “free money.”

Lawyers for Central States responded in early January not by directly addressing the legal merits of their claim but by saying that various federal courts have held that a dispute over pension

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January 25, 2024 by ATTORNEY

From bankruptcy to millions: Ironworker injured at Downtown Jersey City high-rise project wins seven-figure judgment

An ironworker’s injury at a Downtown Jersey City high-rise construction project in 2017 left him unable to work. Living off a monthly $2,688 worker’s compensation check, he and his wife filed for bankruptcy two years later.

But Donald Hoiland’s financial outlook took a meteoric upturn when a Hudson County jury awarded him $5.3 million in compensatory damages, his attorney, Gerald Clark of the Clark Law Firm, said this week.

Hoiland was injured Nov. 2, 2017, at the 235 Grand St. construction site while working for the project’s general contractor, AJD Construction Co., according to court documents. Two years later Hoiland filed the lawsuit against AJD, the developer and other companies working on the $289 million project, dubbed 235 Grand, at the site of the former Hudson County Boys and Girls Club.

Hoiland and his wife filed for bankruptcy the same year. According to court documents, Hoiland had earned nearly $75,000 as an ironworker in 2017.

“We are pleased with the result obtained, which is rather modest given the trial proofs,” Clark said in a statement. “The insurance company and the lawyers they hired to represent the defendant fought us tooth and nail during the five years of this litigation

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January 24, 2024 by ATTORNEY

Chen Family’s Garment District Condo Conversion in Bankruptcy

The saga of a Garment District conversion from factory to fancy condos has a new chapter: Chapter 11, that is.  

The Chen family has put the entity that owns 335 West 35th Street into bankruptcy as it seeks funding to complete the project, records show. It also put a Soho property it used as collateral into bankruptcy.

The family bought 335 West 35th Street, a vacant, 12-story building near Penn Station, for $50 million in 2016, planning to redevelop it. The plan was for condo units, to be sold for a collective $99 million, and space for the family foundation’s TF Chen Cultural Center.

Shanghai Commercial Bank agreed in 2017 to lend the Chens $34 million, consolidating earlier loans and setting a December 2021 maturation date. The first sign of trouble surfaced in 2021, when the developer sued a loan broker it had retained for failing to close on $82 million in new financing from a South Korean firm in 2020.

Interest rates were still low at the time, but the pandemic had brought international travel and capital markets to a virtual standstill.

The construction lender, Shanghai Commercial Bank, refinanced the condo project in November 2020 for $60.6 million. But

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January 18, 2024 by ATTORNEY

Here’s how to get your money back if a business shuts down or files bankruptcy

NORFOLK, Va. — Phillip Coe, an Army veteran, says he was looking forward to escaping the day-to-day by taking a trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

He booked the trip in 2019 with a travel agency that specifically helps military members and their families.

Coe says the final cost, including airfare and a hotel, came out to $1,137.65. However, before the 21-year Army veteran could make the trip, there was the pandemic and then he was diagnosed with cluster headaches, in addition to his leukemia.

“They call them suicide headaches and if you’ve ever had one, you know why,” he says. “Cluster headaches are very painful. They come on one side of your head, and you never know when you are going to get them. It just ruins your whole life.”

He shared a medical statement from his neurologist with me, which says

“Mr. Coe is an active patient at this facility’s neurology clinic due to a diagnosis of cluster headaches. Traveling at high altitudes affects cerebral blood flow and is known to trigger an attack of cluster headaches. Due to this condition, Mr. Coe was advised and will no longer be able to fly on any aircraft.”

Coe

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January 17, 2024 by ATTORNEY

Big Law Firms Accused of Hiding Bankruptcy Judge’s Romance (1)

A lawsuit alleging a former Texas bankruptcy judge improperly shielded a romantic relationship has been expanded to target his girlfriend, as well as law firms Kirkland & Ellis and Jackson Walker.

The amended complaint filed Thursday is part of the ongoing fallout of David R. Jones’ relationship with a former attorney at Jackson Walker, a Texas firm that regularly represented clients in Jones’ courtroom before he resigned in October.

Kirkland & Ellis, a behemoth in the restructuring community, and Jackson Walker filed “numerous misleading and dishonest federal court papers without disclosing the Jones-Freeman relationship,” plaintiff Michael Van Deelen alleged in an amended complaint filed Thursday in US District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Jackson Walker, which employed Freeman until December 2022, often served as local counsel to Kirkland & Ellis in large Chapter 11 cases.

The failure to disclose the relationship amounts to bankruptcy fraud, honest services fraud, mail and wire fraud, and obstruction of justice under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, Van Deelen said in the complaint.

“Debtors received favorable treatment and attorneys got rich in a bankruptcy system akin to shipping lettuce by rabbits,” the amended complaint said.

Van Deelen was a shareholder and

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January 14, 2024 by ATTORNEY
December 2024
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