As a parent of three young children, Disney’s excellent new movie, Encanto, has been on heavy rotation in my household. It’s a story of an extended family whose members possess unique magical gifts. Through several humorous songs, the film reveals that the family has ostracized one member, Bruno, whose mystical visions of future calamities upset the rest of the family. Rather than confront the unpleasant aspects of the future, the family finds it easier to simply “not talk about” them, or Bruno.

Mass tort cases do not usually bankrupt the defendant. But, in the National Prescription Opiate Litigation, three of the defendants have so far declared bankruptcy. The litigation involves the claims brought by thousands of cities, counties, tribes, and other plaintiffs, all consolidated into multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of Ohio (the “MDL”).  Their damages, caused by the opioid epidemic, total in the trillions of dollars.

J.Crew filed for bankruptcy protection; the company’s lenders have agreed to “convert $1.65 billion . . . into equity.” Neiman Marcus Group Inc. and J.C. Penney are also on the bankruptcy path, already entering talks with lenders – WSJ and NYT

Unable to reach a last-minute deal with investors, rental car mainstay Hertz filed for bankruptcy late Friday night, doing so “without a clear plan with creditors in place—a rare move for a company of its size.” Though, like the other big-name bankruptcies in recent weeks, the pandemic pushed the company over the edge, Hertz has been in pretty miserable shape for years, beset by “a series of strategic missteps and other blunders that kept Hertz behind competitors and buried in debt” –