There was a major development last week in Chinese Drywall Litigation when one of the manufacturers agreed to repair 300 homes in a pilot program. The Times-Picayune reported:
- In the first relief for owners of homes ruined by bad drywall from China, a major manufacturer, Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin, has agreed to repair 300 homes along the Gulf Coast in a pilot program that it hopes will expand into a global settlement.
- The major hole is that the deal applies only to Knauf drywall; although Knauf was the dominant supplier in the region, there are a host of other companies based in China which have not gotten involved, and in many cases, haven’t acknowledged the proceedings.
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Russ Herman, a lead plaintiff attorney who has called this the most challenging case of his long legal career because of the foreign-manufacturer issues, said those companies need to learn that they can’t bring harmful products into the United States. He vowed to force them to pay what they owe, but adopted a positive tone and said he hoped the deal with Knauf would move Chinese-based companies to come to the table.
“I think the Chinese want to do the right thing,” Herman said. “We would expect that if this works, they’ll take a look at it.”
Hopefully this program will lead to a settlement for the thousands of victims along the Gulf Coast and in Florida.