|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
by JENN WOOD
***
When South Carolina plaintiffs’ attorneys drag “zombie” corporations back into the state’s asbestos docket – one of America’s most notorious judicial hellholes – the drama doesn’t end with their “resurrection.” That’s just the opening act. The real action comes once a receiver is appointed to puppeteer these zombies — hunting not for products or profits but for insurance policies written half a century ago.
These yellowing contracts, tucked away in warehouse boxes or long-forgotten microfilm reels, are the lifeblood of asbestos litigation. With the companies themselves dissolved and their assets long gone, insurance carriers become the deep pockets targeted by this racket. Every new appointment of a receiver opens a door into decades of coverage records – and every subpoena fired off by the receiver is a line cast into the past, searching for liability that can be monetized for the benefit of those running the racket.
***
THE SUBPOENA MACHINE
At the center of this process sits Columbia, S.C. attorney Peter Protopapas, the court’s go-to receiver on the asbestos docket. Once appointed, his job is simple in theory – but expansive in practice. Simply put, Protopapas finds insurance coverage wherever it hides. That begins with subpoenas — dozens of them, sometimes hundreds — aimed at insurance carriers across the country.
The requests don’t stop at obvious places. Protopapas has issued subpoenas reaching back into the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, demanding insurers cough up every policy they may have ever issued to companies like Covil Corporation, Burlington Industries, or Whitaker, Clark & Daniels. Even though these companies have been defunct for decades, their paper trail lives on — and in South Carolina, that trail is treated as an asset to be strip-mined via an unscrupulous docket masquerading as a legitimate court of law.
For insurers, complying with these subpoenas is costly and time-consuming. Some policies are incomplete, others were written under legal standards that no longer exist, and many involve carriers that have merged, dissolved, or restructured over the decades. Yet in the courtroom of former chief justice Jean Toal – who was empowered by another former chief justice to run this docket – noncompliance isn’t an option. These subpoenas carry the weight of judicial orders, and the threat of sanctions looms over any insurer that resists.
***
Such pressure is deliberate. Critics call Protopapas’ subpoena machine a fishing expedition designed to overwhelm carriers – forcing them into settlements as opposed to trials based on contracts older than most of the jurors who would hear the case. Supporters of the racket dispute that characterization – and the underlying insinuation that the docket is a “racket.” According to them, it’s the only way to hold insurers accountable for risks they once willingly underwrote.
South Carolina’s attorney general has noticed the same problem. In April 2025, Alan Wilson led a coalition of fifteen state attorneys general warning asbestos bankruptcy trusts to halt plans to destroy decades of claim records. The letter argued that these documents are “often essential for verifying claims, uncovering fraud, and protecting the integrity of the legal process.”
Wilson warned that eliminating them could amount to obstruction — shielding trusts from subpoenas and undermining transparency in cases where insurers are already pressured to settle.
***
RELATED | TOXIC JUSTICE, PART 1
***
REWRITING THE CONTRACTS
The pressure on insurers doesn’t end with subpoenas. Once the old policies are located, the next fight is over how those contracts are interpreted — and in South Carolina’s asbestos docket, judges have consistently sided with plaintiffs.
In theory, insurance contracts are supposed to be read narrowly, with coverage limited to the language of the policy and the time period it was written for. In practice, Toal has taken a far more expansive approach. She has interpreted asbestos exclusions narrowly, broadened definitions of “occurrence,” and embraced “all sums” allocation — a method that forces a single insurer to cover an entire asbestos judgment even if the claimant’s exposure spanned decades and multiple carriers.
The effect of these broad interpretations is significant. Under “all sums,” if just one year of coverage is found, an insurer can be made to pay the entire verdict. Policies written for a few thousand dollars in premiums in the 1970s can suddenly be stretched to cover tens of millions of dollars in judgments half a century later.
Insurers argue this rewrites their contracts and ignores settled law — specifically citing Crossmann, a case in which the S.C. supreme court endorsed a more balanced “time-on-the-risk” allocation. Plaintiffs’ lawyers counter that without “all sums,” many victims would recover nothing, since the companies themselves are gone and piecemeal coverage battles could drag on for years.
This clash is now at the center of the Starr Davis case, where Travelers Insurance is testing the limits of Toal’s rulings.
***
THE PETITION TO REIN IN TOAL
After Toal appointed Peter Protopapas as receiver for the defunct Starr Davis Company, she applied the expansive “all sums” approach to maximize recovery against Travelers Insurance, rejecting arguments that Crossmann and a 1985 agreement capped the carrier’s obligations.
Travelers appealed, but in May 2025 the South Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed Toal’s ruling (.pdf).
The fight didn’t stop there. In July 2025, Travelers filed a petition asking the state supreme court to intervene (.pdf) — not just to protect its own balance sheet, but to rein in what it describes as systemic overreach in the asbestos docket.
Its brief is a full frontal attack on the receivership itself. Travelers argued that once the original plaintiffs dismissed their claims, the receivership became void ab initio — i.e. illegal from the start. Citing the court’s recent Welch and Tibbs rulings, the insurer insisted Protopapas had no standing to carry on litigation after the original plaintiffs walked away. If the justices agree, it could unravel not only this case but the foundation of similar receiverships statewide.
***
***
Next, Travelers’ brief zeroed in on contract interpretation. It argued Toal’s “all sums” allocation flew in the face of Crossmann, which required asbestos damages to be spread across all policy years. Toal’s approach, it claimed, turned a single year of coverage into a blank check for decades of exposure.
The petition also faulted Toal for brushing aside a 1985 settlement agreement, for treating multiple asbestos claims as separate “occurrences” and for stretching the definition of “completed operations” beyond recognition.
Layered on top are procedural complaints: ex parte policy submissions delivered to Toal’s home after she had already ruled, reliance on demonstrative charts instead of admissible evidence, and summary judgment granted before discovery was complete.
Together, Travelers said, these moves exposed a courtroom where process was bent to achieve predetermined outcomes.
Finally, the insurer tied the dispute back to Toal’s earlier rulings in the infamous Covil Corporation case, which a federal judge in North Carolina rejected. It warned that South Carolina’s asbestos docket had become a vehicle to entrench those same plaintiff-friendly interpretations, case by case, until they calcify into state law.
Of note, representing Protopapas in this fight is none other than South Carolina House Speaker Murrell Smith — whose firm, Smith Robinson, has repeatedly profited from receivership appointments. For critics, the petition crystallized long-standing complaints: the asbestos docket doesn’t just revive dead companies — it rewrites their insurance contracts, shifts leverage to plaintiffs, and shields the process from scrutiny. And in Starr Davis, Travelers is asking the state’s highest court to finally call time on that playbook.
***
RELATED | TOXIC JUSTICE, PART 2: THE RECEIVERSHIP ENTERPRISE
***
FEDERAL PUSHBACK
South Carolina’s liberal defining of the asbestos docket hasn’t gone unnoticed by other courts — and not all of them are willing to play along. In one striking example, a federal judge in North Carolina confronted similar arguments in the Whitaker, Clark & Daniels (WCD) litigation and responded with unusual bluntness. When attorneys sought to extend Toal’s plaintiff-friendly interpretations of insurance coverage across state lines, the court’s order (.pdf) rebuked the effort as a radical intrusion into another state’s authority, underscoring just how far South Carolina’s asbestos rulings stray from national norms.
The ruling underscored a key point: South Carolina’s asbestos docket is an outlier, not the rule. Federal judges have repeatedly emphasized that contract law, corporate domicile, and constitutional limits constrain how far a state can stretch liability. What Toal embraces as “all sums” allocation and broad coverage triggers, other courts have dismissed as legal overreach.
The WCD case highlighted the tension between South Carolina’s insular asbestos system and the broader national framework of insurance law. While Toal’s rulings maximize recovery for plaintiffs, neighboring jurisdictions have refused to enforce them – warning they distort long-settled principles of contract interpretation and corporate governance.
Insurers are seizing on that pushback. In their filings, Travelers and others have pointed to the North Carolina rejection as evidence that Toal’s interpretations are not just expansive but legally unsustainable. If other states and federal courts won’t recognize her rulings, they argue, South Carolina risks building an asbestos regime that collapses the moment it is tested beyond its own borders.
***
FROM COURTROOM BATTLES TO POLITICAL TIES
The clash over subpoenas, contract interpretation, and the Travelers’ petition shows just how far South Carolina’s asbestos docket stretches the boundaries of insurance law. Inside Toal’s courtroom, century-old policies are transformed into multimillion-dollar payouts. Outside of it, federal judges recoil at what they see as legal overreach.
But the story isn’t just about contracts and coverage. Behind the rulings and receiverships lies a deeper web of relationships — judges, legislators, receivers, and law firms whose careers and fortunes are bound up in the asbestos machine.
In the next installment of Toxic Justice, we’ll peel back that layer. From Speaker Murrell Smith’s dual role as lawmaker and litigator to the lawyer-legislators who sit on the very commission that selects South Carolina’s judges, Part 4 will expose the incestuous ties that critics say turn the state’s asbestos docket into a for-profit, politically insulated scam.
***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
As a private investigator turned journalist, Jenn Wood brings a unique skill set to FITSNews as its research director. Known for her meticulous sourcing and victim-centered approach, she helps shape the newsroom’s most complex investigative stories while producing the FITSFiles and Cheer Incorporated podcasts. Jenn lives in South Carolina with her family, where her work continues to spotlight truth, accountability, and justice.
***
WANNA SOUND OFF?
Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our articles? Or an issue you’d like to address proactively? We have an open microphone policy! Submit your letter to the editor (or guest column) via email HERE. Got a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question or a glitch to report? CLICK HERE.
