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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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What A Bankruptcy Might Mean For WeWork’s Tenants

According to a story posted in the Wall Street Journal on August 24, several owners of WeWork’s secured debt totaling $1.2 billion are holding what were called “preliminary talks about the company’s restructuring options and indicated that they would support a plan for WeWork to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy.” However, the creditors who include BlackRock, King Street Capital and Brigade Capital, have not yet provided specific proposals concerning a bankruptcy or debt restructuring to WeWork, as per sources that were not identified.

What does this news mean for WeWork tenants, known as members? This is a long run prospect. Nobody knows exactly what will happen, and we are just at the start of a process that will have many twists and turns. However, let’s take a look at what might happen if a bankruptcy plan is negotiated with WeWork’s secured creditors by working through some of the alternatives if WeWork tries to reorganize as an ongoing company. To do so I consulted Eric Haber, general counsel for my firm Wharton Property Advisors who is also a bankruptcy attorney.

A Potential Bankruptcy Scenario

Under a potential bankruptcy reorganization plan,

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3M awaits bankruptcy ruling that could sink litigation tactic

3M’s attempt to block jury trials of more than 230,000 lawsuits accusing it of harming U.S. soldiers faces a key test this week in front of a federal judge in Indianapolis.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jeffrey Graham is set to consider a temporary halt to the lawsuits so that 3M and its bankrupt subsidiary, Aearo Technologies, can try to settle the claims, most of which have been filed by veterans who say the combat arms earplugs left them with hearing damage.

Graham’s decision will echo across the offices of other firms facing massive numbers of product liability lawsuits, Harvard Law School professor Jared Ellias said in an interview.

“To the extent 3M suffers a setback here it’s likely to set off alarm bells in other corporate boardrooms of companies that want to take advantage of the bankruptcy system,” Ellias said.

The Aearo case uses an increasingly popular strategy in which profitable companies use insolvency proceedings to force settlement talks with victims of allegedly harmful products.

Johnson & Johnson and lumber giant Georgia-Pacific have also put units into bankruptcy with the same goal of ending their litigation woes in one place instead of fighting thousands of trials around the country.

Fighting each

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