EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–J-M Manufacturing Company, Inc., one of Los Angeles’s largest privately held manufacturing companies, announced today that, based on information provided by a whistleblower and other evidence, it has filed a federal lawsuit alleging a years-long racketeering and fraud scheme by The Gori Law Firm, one of the nation’s most prolific asbestos plaintiffs’ law firms, and several of its senior partners.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, asserts claims under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), along with common-law fraud, unjust enrichment, and civil conspiracy. The complaint alleges that the defendants “schemed and conspired to file and prosecute sham lawsuits, pursued baseless claims, coached witnesses to commit perjury, and otherwise sought to extract money from J-M Manufacturing through a pattern of fraud and deception” by filing hundreds of objectively baseless lawsuits used as leverage to extract settlements from J-M Manufacturing and other companies.
The lawsuit also reveals whistleblower evidence of a “bounty” system that rewarded lawyers for coaxing plaintiffs into blaming targeted companies, even when the facts showed otherwise, and how deposition lawyers paid approximately $65,000 a year in base salary could earn as much as $900,000 in bonuses for getting clients to make allegations against companies on the bounty lists.
Said Frank Fletcher, General Counsel for J-M Manufacturing Co.:
“Today, J-M Manufacturing Company filed a federal RICO lawsuit against The Gori Law Firm and its partners in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. The complaint based on evidence from a whistleblower insider and other direct evidence alleges that Gori and its attorneys orchestrated a systematic scheme to file hundreds of fraudulent asbestos lawsuits against J-M Manufacturing—cases so baseless that 96% were ultimately dismissed.
“This lawsuit seeks accountability for what we allege was an industrial-scale fraud operation: manufactured claims, coached testimony, and the deliberate exploitation of the legal system for profit. J-M Manufacturing was forced to spend millions defending lawsuits brought on behalf of plaintiffs who never worked with its products—including individuals whose work histories ended before the company even existed.
“We look forward to presenting our evidence in court and holding those responsible accountable.”
A National Company Targeted in the Asbestos Litigation Epicenter
J-M Manufacturing, owned by Los Angeles-based industrialist Walter Wang, is the largest producer of plastic pipe in the United States and among the largest globally. The company was formed in 1983 and supplied a limited amount of asbestos-cement pipe (“ACP”) between 1983 and 1988, solely to accommodate water districts that mandated or approved its use before transitioning to PVC pipe.
According to the complaint, despite this narrow historical footprint, The Gori Law Firm has named J-M Manufacturing in more than 400 asbestos lawsuits since 2018 alone—most of them filed in Madison and St. Clair counties — small Mississippi River jurisdictions in Southern Illinois that have become the epicenter of U.S. asbestos litigation.
Madison County, with a population of approximately 265,000, ranked as the top asbestos filing venue in the nation in 2024, surpassing major metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The complaint states that the Gori firm—based in Edwardsville, Illinois—is alleged to have filed roughly 20% of all asbestos cases nationwide in 2024, while claiming more than $4 billion in recoveries since inception.
Extraordinary Dismissal Rates and Whistleblower Evidence
According to the lawsuit, approximately 96% of the cases filed against J-M Manufacturing were ultimately dismissed once facts were examined—an outcome the company alleges reflects not weak litigation strategy, but a deliberate business model designed to force settlement of objectively frivolous cases.
According to the complaint, “J-M Manufacturing was unaware that it was the victim of the Gori Firm’s fraudulent scheme and strategy until 2024, when it was approached by a whistleblower who previously worked as a depo attorney at the Gori Firm from approximately 2018 to 2024” and “the whistleblower provided information about the bounty program, as well as the strategy by which the Gori Firm used frivolous cases to structure batch settlements. “
Allegations of Coached Testimony and Concealed Trust Claims
The complaint alleges that these attorneys were trained to present elderly and often gravely ill clients with pre-drafted exposure affidavits tied to asbestos bankruptcy trusts before meaningful investigation; use internal product-identification booklets to coach plaintiffs to “recognize” specific companies and their products; delay submission of trust claims until after depositions to conceal inconsistent exposure narratives; and file dozens of lawsuits at a time—many later dismissed—to create leverage in batch settlement negotiations. According to the complaint, “Oftentimes the plaintiff would not recall what products they were exposed to decades ago. The depo attorneys were trained to tell the plaintiff that even though he or she might not be familiar with the various companies, the Gori Firm had done lots of research, and based on their research, the plaintiff was exposed to the products of the defendants recommended for inclusion by the attorney.”
Broader Economic and Public Interest Stakes
The lawsuit places these allegations within a broader national context. Data cited in the filing indicates that more than 100 U.S. companies have been driven into bankruptcy by asbestos litigation, eliminating tens of thousands of jobs across manufacturing, mining, construction materials, and shipbuilding. The complaint draws a distinction between legitimate accountability for asbestos exposure and what it alleges is systemic abuse of the litigation process.
Case Information
The case is J-M Manufacturing Company, Inc. v. The Gori Law Firm et al., filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, East St. Louis Division. J-M Manufacturing Company is represented by Ashwin J. Ram and David H. Chao of Buchalter LLP. The complaint can be viewed at https://www.buchalter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/1-J-MM-Complaint107812682.1.pdf
Contacts
Sitrick And Company
Mike Sitrick
[email protected]
Jim Bates
[email protected]
