A Look At The Record In Garlock s Celebrated Estimation Order

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1 MEALEY S TM Asbestos Bankruptcy Report A Look At The Record In Garlock s Celebrated Estimation Order by Janice Robinson Pennington San Diego, California A commentary article reprinted from the July 2014 issue of Mealey s Asbestos Bankruptcy Report

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3 MEALEY S Asbestos Bankruptcy Report Vol. 13, #12 July 2014 Commentary A Look At The Record In Garlock s Celebrated Estimation Order By Janice Robinson Pennington [Editor s Note: Janice Robinson Pennington, Esq. is an appellate attorney living in San Diego, Cal., and has handled countless appeals, summary judgment motions and responses, motions in limine, jury charges, post-trial motions and other trial related matters in a nationwide asbestos practice. Ms. Pennington is also a prolific legal writer and regularly authors both bylined and ghostwritten books, articles, and practice development materials. Ms. Pennington is admitted to practice in Texas, Arizona and the District of Columbia.] A decision in January by the judge handling the Garlock Chapter 11 bankruptcy procedure in North Carolina was widely celebrated by many defendants in asbestos litigation and their counsel. Order Estimating Aggregate Liability, In Re: Garlock Sealing Technologies, 504 B.R. 71 (Bankr. W.D.N.C. 2014) ( order ). In the view of Judge George R. Hodges, certain plaintiffs lawyers have inappropriately withheld from Garlock evidence of their clients exposure to other companies asbestos products. Without this evidence from the plaintiffs, the Court suggested, Garlock has been forced to pay higher settlements and to suffer adverse jury verdicts in cases in which the company failed to present its own evidence at trial concerning other manufacturers products to which the plaintiff was exposed. As an example of the plaintiffs lawyers purported withholding of evidence, Judge Hodges referenced a California case involving a former Navy machinist mate aboard a nuclear submarine, [in which] Garlock suffered a verdict of $9 million in actual damages. Order, 504 B.R. at 84 (} 60). As is plain from the Court s description and a review of publicly available information, the case discussed is Treggett v. Garlock. 1 A look at the actual record, however, reveals that Judge Hodges was mistaken about the facts in Treggett, confused about the burden of proof of asbestos product exposure in court as well as in the asbestos bankruptcy trusts and flat out wrong about plaintiffs counsel s ethical responsibilities to their clients, the courts and their adversaries. Mistaken About The Facts Mr. Treggett was a 60-year-old former machinist s mate who developed mesothelioma as a result of his exposure to Garlock s asbestos gaskets and to other asbestos-containing products, while serving his country in the Navy and elsewhere. Garlock Brief at Following a jury trial in California against Garlock and others, Mr. Treggett and his wife were awarded $36,688,496, including an $18,000,000 punitive award. Id. Garlock was found 40 percent liable, Kelly- Moore 14 percent, and other non-parties 46 percent, with a 39 percent share assigned to the U.S. Navy. Id. The Plaintiff in Treggett Admitted To Exposure To Asbestos Pipe Insulation During His Navy Service. One of Garlock s defensive theories at trial was that Mr.Treggett slimitedexposuretopipecovering (which Garlock claimed was Unibestos), and not his frequent hands-on work with Garlock s asbestos gaskets, caused his mesothelioma. Garlock managed to persuade Judge Hodges that Mr. Treggett wilfully hid 1

4 Vol. 13, #12 July 2014 MEALEY S Asbestos Bankruptcy Report from the jury his exposure to amphibole insulation in general and Unibestos insulation in particular. But Judge Hodges following description of the evidence (and argument) in Treggett bears little resemblance to what the jury heard at trial: The plaintiff did not admit to any exposure from amphibole insulation, did not identify any specific insulation product and claimed that 100% of his work was on gaskets. Garlock attempted to show that he was exposed to Unibestos amphibole insulation manufactured by Pittsburgh Corning. The plaintiff denied that and, moreover, the plaintiff s lawyer fought to keep Pittsburgh Corning off the verdict form and even affirmatively represented to the jury that there was no Unibestos insulation on the ship. Order, 504 B.R. at 84 (} 60). This is certainly not the way Garlock itself described theevidencetothecaliforniaappellatecourts.according to Garlock, during Mr. Treggett s four and a half years on the U.S.S. John Marshall, he worked as a machinist s mate, operating, maintaining, and repairing the Marshall s steam propulsion system. Garlock Brief at 5. While Mr. Treggett was performing repairs, he spent 70 percent of his time not 100 percent working with asbestos gaskets. Id. at 8; 8, n.1 (citing the record at 4 RT 909, 969; 5 RT ) And Mr. Treggett never denied his exposure to asbestos pipe covering. Indeed, on appeal from the verdict, Garlock described a trial record chock-full of Mr. Treggett s admissions to exposure to pipe covering aboard the Marshall; for six months Mr. Treggett was exposed daily to miles of lagging and the thick dust created by its removal and installation covered his clothes and hair. Id. at 4-5 (citing the record at 4 RT 702, 709, , , , , ; 5 RT , , 1248; 10 RT 3340). improperly withheld from defendants in asbestos litigation. See Order, 504 B.R. at 73, 83-4 (Summary, }} 58-60). On this point, Judge Hodges was correct only in that Mr. Treggett could not (as opposed to did not or would not) identify the manufacturers of the miles of pipe covering installed aboard the submarine. And he had no idea about the pipe covering s asbestos-fiber type content. 5 RT But this is hardly unusual, much less underhanded. As a machinist s mate, Mr. Treggett worked with rigid pipe insulation only a very small fraction of the time about three percent of the time he spent on repairs. 4 RT He was not trained or qualified to insulate pipes; it was simply not his job. Id. As Garlock s longtime defense counsel all well know, asbestos pipe covering all looked alike and once it was out of the box, you couldn t tell one brand from another. This is in stark contrast to the asbestos sheet gasket material that Garlock manufactured, which was conveniently stamped all over with the Garlock name. No matter where you cut your gasket, you could see at least a portion of the Garlock brand name. Over the years, many career insulators to their own detriment have declined to speculate when identifying the manufacturers of pipe covering used on a specific job, even though they worked with the The Record in Treggett Contained No Indication That The Plaintiff Withheld Evidence Of Product Manufacturers Of Which He Was Aware. The Court was of the mistaken view that mesothelioma victims and their counsel have some sort of control over the evidence, which they have Unibestos pipe covering out of the packaging Garlock gasket material out of the packaging 2

5 MEALEY S Asbestos Bankruptcy Report Vol. 13, #12 July 2014 product every day. See, e.g., Hembree v. Celotex, 1992 WL , at *4 (Ohio App. July 14, 1992) (summary judgment affirmed against pipefitter who worked hands-on with asbestos pipe insulation at Chrysler plant for15yearsbutwasunabletoidentifythemanufacturers). 2 Indeed, Mr. Treggett himself refused to speculate or overstate his exposure to asbestos gaskets used with pumps made by one of the trial defendants De Laval and suffered a directed verdict as a result. Trial transcript (October 6, 2004) at , As difficult as it is for mesothelioma victims to identify the manufacturers of the products to which they were exposed, fewer plaintiffs still would be able to identify the asbestos fiber content in a product, as Judge Hodges appeared to think Mr. Treggett should have done. In recent years the asbestos industry has tried to argue that some forms of asbestos fiber are safe.d.egilman,c.fehnel,s.bohme,exposing the Myth of ABC, Anything But Chrysotile : A Critique of the Asbestos Mining Industry and McGill University Chrysotile Studies, 44 American Journal of Industrial Medicine (2003). But in 1972 when Mr. Treggett was last exposed to asbestos pipe covering in the Navy, many asbestos product manufacturers like Garlock for example were not even placing rudimentary asbestos warnings on their products or packaging, much less asbestos warnings that might have differentiated the risks of one asbestos product over another. The record in Mr. Treggett s case contained no evidence to suggest that he personally had any such knowledge, let alone withheld it. Nor did Mr. Treggett s experts at trial suggest otherwise. Indeed, experts for both plaintiff and defendants testified that the pipe covering Mr. Treggett was exposed to likely contained amphibole asbestos. Garlock Brief at 12 (summarizing testimony of Dr. Hammar, plaintiff s expert) and (summarizing testimony of Garlock s experts, Sawyer, Mangold and Hughson). The Plaintiff s Counsel In Treggett Did Not Represent That No Unibestos Was Aboard The USS John Marshall; He Maintained That The Trial Defendants Had Adduced No Proof Of Their Assertion. Judge Hodges was also mistaken that the plaintiff s lawyer... affirmatively represented to the jury that there was no Unibestos insulation on the ship. What the plaintiff s lawyer did was to object to defense counsel s argument in closing that Unibestos had been used aboard the submarine after the trial court had already ruled that the trial defendants had failed to put on evidence of the presence of Unibestos aboard the boat. During the charge conference, Mr. Treggett s counsel objected to the inclusion of Pittsburgh Corning s Unibestos on the verdict form because neither Garlock 3 nor any other defendant had presented any evidence of the product s presence on the USS John Marshall. Trial Transcript ( ) at The judge deferred ruling on the issue until defense counsel had the opportunity over the lunch break to identify the required evidence in the record. Id. at The trial court, after listening to the proffered evidence, ruled explicitly: That s no evidence at all... Doesn t help you. So Unibestos is out. Id. at Despite the trial court s unequivocal ruling on the issue, defense counsel nevertheless proceeded to ignore the judge s decision and argue to the jury that Unibestos was to blame for Mr. Treggett s mesothelioma. Trial Transcript ( ) at ; ( ) at Mr. Treggett s counsel then properly objected that such evidence was lacking from the record: Yarway counsel: Now, there was a particular type of insulation that was used on these submarines and it was called Unibestos. Mr. Treggett s counsel: Your Honor, I am going to object. That is not in the record. Trial Transcript ( ) at ; ( ) at Obviously, what a lawyer says in closing argument is not evidence upon which a jury may base its decision. California Civil Jury Instructions 101 ( What the parties say in closing argument is not evidence. ) But if a subsequent court decides to use closing argument as a basis for its decision in a later, entirely separate proceeding, it would seem important to have the facts straight. Confused About Differing Standards For Proving Asbestos Product Exposure In Trust Claims and Lawsuits Judge Hodges order further rebukes Mr. Treggett s lawyers for filing 14 trust claims after the verdict and fail[ing]todiscloseexposureto22otherasbestos products. 504 B.R. at 84 (} 60). Because the trust 3

6 Vol. 13, #12 July 2014 MEALEY S Asbestos Bankruptcy Report claims are confidential, it is impossible to know exactly which claims and which products are referred to, but one thing is plain: the order reflects a misunderstanding of the difference between the proof of product exposure required to withstand a directed verdict at trial and that needed to establish entitlement to compensation from an asbestos bankruptcy trust. Entitlement to asbestos bankruptcy trust compensation does not prove that exposure to a given product was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff s mesothelioma, or that exposure necessarily even occurred. Nor does the filing of an initial ballot or 2019 statement in an asbestos bankruptcy trust provide evidence of exposure to the debtor s asbestos products. From A Review of the Publicly Available Information In Treggett Discovery And On The Asbestos Bankruptcy Trust Websites, It Appears That Many Trusts Would Have Presumed Mr. Treggett s Product Exposure Without Requiring Further Evidence Of Product Exposure. To prove strict liability and negligence claims in California, where Mr. Treggett s case was tried, a mesothelioma plaintiff bears the burden to prove exposure to a product that was to a reasonable medical probability a substantial factor in contributing to the risk of his disease. Rutherford v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 941 P.2d 1203, 16 Cal.4th 953, (Cal. 1997). This standard reflects the California Supreme Court s recognition that plaintiffs in mesothelioma cases cannot prove the unknowable - that is, which precise fibers caused their injuries. Rutherford, 16 Cal.4th at It is enough that plaintiffs prove that their exposure to a defendant s products was a substantial factor in contributing to the aggregate dose of asbestos the plaintiff or decedent inhaled or ingested, and hence to the risk of developing asbestos-related cancer... Id. Thus, the exposure that Judge Hodges characterized as de minimis in his estimation order is in reality viewed quite differently by the courts in California, which have tried and resolved great numbers of mesothelioma cases over several decades, including the Treggett case. See order, 504 B.R. at 73 (Summary). In other jurisdictions, asbestos defendants including Garlock itself have successfully urged for adherence to different, quite rigid evidentiary requirements in proving product exposure. See, e.g., Lindstrom v. A-C Product Liability Trust, 424 F.3d 488, (6th Cir. 2005)(summary judgment for Garlock affirmed where plaintiffs produced evidence that Garlock asbestos products were present aboard ship on which the decedent served, but witness could testify only that some, not all, Garlock products were asbestos containing); see also Lohrmann v. Pittsburgh Corning Corp., 782 F.2d 1156, 1162 (4th Cir. 1986)(directed verdict in favor of Pittsburgh Corning affirmed where pipefitter who worked daily with asbestos products for 29 years was exposed 10 to 15 times to Unibestos pipe covering; such exposure held insubstantial under rigid frequency, regularity and proximity test). In most asbestos bankruptcy trusts, by contrast, product exposure is presumed where a claimant worked at a particular jobsite or in a particular trade. The trusts reap the benefit of the product exposure evidence acquired by the debtors long experience in asbestos litigation. Professor Todd Brown, a bankruptcy law professor who has testified in Congress in support of the asbestos industry, has published on the precise subject. S. Todd Brown, How Long is Forever This Time? The Broken Promise of Bankruptcy Trusts, 61 Buffalo L. Rev. 537, (2013). Judge Hodges was evidently unaware of the trusts common presumption in favor of exposure, but not Garlock, whose expert in the estimation case, Bates White, understood the distinction quite well. Indeed, Bates White partner Marc Scarcella was among those thanked by Professor Brown on this very point that prevailing exposure standards in the trusts embrace causation frameworks that have been expressly rejected by several state courts... Id. at To reserve trust assets for the payment of compensation to injured victims, most asbestos bankruptcy trusts rely on the debtor s amassed storehouse of exposure evidence to streamline the claims process. Ibid. Unlike a plaintiff in court, a claimant in bankruptcy commonly establishes eligibility for compensation by showing only that he worked at a particular jobsite or, even more broadly, that he worked at a certain type of jobsite, such as a shipyard, or held a particular occupation, such as a brake mechanic, for instance. Id. at 560. Based on the information provided to Garlock in discovery, then, and without any more 4

7 MEALEY S Asbestos Bankruptcy Report Vol. 13, #12 July 2014 exposure evidence than that, Mr. Treggett may have been eligible to obtain compensation from many asbestos bankruptcy trusts-perhaps as many as 24 trusts. Id. at 561, (Appendix B (Exposure and Medical Criteria)). Given the relaxed exposure standards applicable to most asbestos bankruptcy trust claims, the showing of eligibility for trust compensation does not equate to proof of product exposure as required in California or elsewhere. Id. at 563. By filing claims in the bankruptcy trusts, Mr. Treggett did not necessarily admit or prove exposure to other asbestos products. Judge Hodge s reference to Mr. Treggett s asbestos bankruptcy trust claims as support for the assertion that the plaintiff s lawyers failed to disclose exposure to 22 other asbestos products is, then, completely misguided. The mere filing of asbestos bankruptcy trust claims after trial is in no way inconsistent with Mr. Treggett s position at trial that he had no knowledge of asbestos product exposure other than that disclosed in discovery. Further, even for a trust that does not presume product exposure for certain jobsites or occupations, Mr. Treggett s filing of a claim with such a trust would not necessarily prove his exposure to an amphibole product, as Judge Hodge s order suggests. 504 B.R. at 84 (} 60). Many asbestos manufacturers included both amphibole and chrysotile-only products within their asbestos product line. But no asbestos bankruptcy trust makes a distinction among fiber types when delineating the exposure evidence necessary to support a claim. Thus, proof of exposure to a debtor s asbestos products is not one and the same as proof of exposure to amphibole products. The Filing Of A Ballot or 2019 In An Asbestos Bankruptcy Trust Does Not Provide Evidence Of Exposure To The Debtor s Asbestos Products. The most important evidence to suggest that Mr. Treggett s lawyers purportedly withheld product exposure evidence is actually no evidence at all: a ballot in the Pittsburgh Corning bankruptcy that certified under penalty of perjury that the plaintiff had been exposed to Unibestos Insulation. A ballot is used to vote for or against a proposed plan of reorganization. But Judge Hodges treated it as though it were a proof of claim form used to establish eligibility for compensation in the asbestos bankruptcy trust, once the plan is approved. The act of voting for an asbestos bankruptcy trust plan, however, cannot be misconstrued as an evidentiary admission of exposure to particular asbestos products. The ballot and the proof of claim form were designed to serve very different purposes. The ordinary bankruptcy rules requiring that claims be filed before ballots can be cast to approve or reject a plan of reorganization are difficult to apply in asbestos cases, which may involve tens or even hundreds of thousands of creditors. In re Quigley Co., 346 B.R. 647, 653 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2006) (discussing interplay among 11 U.S.C. 1126(a); Fed. R. Bankr. P. 3002(a); and 11 U.S.C. 502(a). Many courts view it as a waste of time to require claimants to file meaningless proof of claim forms containing little to no information before the voting takes place, but have also found that the time consuming process of completing of a substantive claim form with extensive medical information should be left for submission to the trust only after the plan is confirmed. Id. Asa result, bankruptcy courts frequently devise various methods within their discretion to allow thousands of mass tort claimants to rely on their counsel to vote their unfiled claims in a master ballot of sorts, and to track the clients for whom each law firm votes in a document known as a 2019 statement. Id. See also In re Lloyd E. Mitchell, Inc., 373 B.R. 416, 423 (Bankr. D. Md. 2007) (citing In re Porter-Hayden Company, No (Bankr. D. Md.); and In re ACandS, Inc., No (Bankr. D. Del)). In the Pittsburgh Corning bankruptcy, Judge Fitzgerald resolved any quandary over voting without a proof of claim form by ruling that the ballot is deemed the proof of claim form, but only forpurposesof voting up or down on the plan. In re Pittsburgh Corning Corp., No (Bankr. W.D.Pa.) (Order entered November 26, 2003). Although the estimation order did not mention 2019 statements, they, too, serve a very different purpose from proof of claim forms. Courts with experience in mass tort bankruptcy trusts recognize that the mere inclusion of a client on a 2019 in an asbestos case does not necessarily mean that the client filed or will file a claim or that any claim will be allowed once presented to the trust. In re ACandS, Inc., 462 B.R. 88, 97 n.6 (Bankr. D. Del. 2011). The 5

8 Vol. 13, #12 July 2014 MEALEY S Asbestos Bankruptcy Report purpose of the 2019 statement is merely to ensure that the law firms voting actually represent the clients they claim to; the master ballot provides the same information. Id. at n. 11 (quotation omitted). The ballot also attests to the nature of the claim, indicating very broad categories of injury and exposure. Id. at n. 13. Neither the ballot, nor the 2019 statement, contains evidence concerning product exposure. This exposure evidence if it is not ultimately presumed by the trust is supplied later in the actual proof of claim form filed after confirmation of the plan. In practice, a ballot is cast on the client s behalf when the claimant or counsel has a good faith basis to believe that, when the trust is set up and the claims process is later initiated, the victim may be entitled to file a claim, either because investigation is likely to yield evidence of exposure to the debtor s products, or because the claimant will have other grounds for asserting a claim under the rules of the bankruptcy trust. Again, many trusts have compiled approved site and occupation lists which negate any requirement for evidence that the claimant was exposed to the debtor s products, so long as he worked at an approved site in an occupation that the trust presumes entailed sufficient product exposure. In the Treggett lawsuit, Mr. Treggett did not know the manufacturer of the miles of pipe covering to which he freely admitted exposure. Garlock Brief, supra, at 4-5. As a result, his counsel s good faith belief that Mr. Treggett may ultimately be eligible to file a claim with the Pittsburgh Corning trust once it is established was not based on any facts known to or possessed by Mr. Treggett himself. Instead, the lawyer s belief may have been based upon impressions, conclusions or opinions generated in the representation of other clients in unrelated cases. In either event, no disclosure would have been required in Mr. Treggett s California lawsuit. If the client was aware of no facts concerning exposure to Pittsburgh Corning products, there was nothing to disclose in discovery. And if counsel s belief about Mr. Treggett s eventual eligibility to file a trust claim was based on privileged work product derived from sources equally accessible to the defendants in litigation, there was similarly nothing to disclose. An attorney s impressions, conclusions and opinions are subject to an absolute work product privilege in California. Coito v. Superior Court, 54 Cal.4th 480, (Cal. 2012)(witness statements that reveal an attorney s impressions, conclusions, opinions, legal research or theories are protected by an absolute work product privilege and statements obtained through an attorney-directed interview are, as a matter of law, entitled to at least qualified work product protection). Given the very different purposes of ballots and proof of claim forms, then, an asbestos bankruptcy trust ballot or 2019 statement cannot fairly be interpreted, as Judge Hodges appears to have done, as an admission that would serve as evidence in court that the claimant was exposed to the debtor s product. Garlock certainly failed to provide the court with even a single instance in which a ballot or 2019 statement has been accepted as proof of product exposure in court. In practice, the ballot provides evidence of counsel s good faith belief that future investigation will demonstrate a legal basis for proceeding against a trust. But the failure to disclose a lawyer s belief about the future viability of his or her client s bankruptcy trust claim, particularly when the belief is based on privileged work product derived from other cases, can hardly be described as the improper withholding of evidence. Wrong About Plaintiffs Lawyers Ethical Responsibilities Judge Hodges condemned as perverted a plaintiff s lawyer s decision to attempt to maximize his mesothelioma clients recovery by filing suit first against solvent defendants and then, where appropriate, making claims in the asbestos bankruptcy trusts. Order, 504 B.R. at 84 (} 58 (b)). Many trusts, of course, did not exist until after the Treggett trial was over, leaving counsel with no choice but to wait to file a claim. 4 But setting aside this fact, a plaintiff s lawyer s ethical duty does not require or even permit that he or she prove the defendant s case in addition to the plaintiff s. Mr. Treggett s Lawyers Were Ethically Bound To Protect Their Clients Interests By Pursuing Culpable Defendants That Would Likely Provide The Largest Recovery, Not By Investigating And Proving Defenses To Their Clients Case. Judge Hodges expressed distaste for a common practice in mesothelioma cases initially filing suit against 6

9 MEALEY S Asbestos Bankruptcy Report Vol. 13, #12 July 2014 solvent defendants and making bankruptcy claims later appeared to be tangled up with the Court s misapprehension that most mesothelioma victims actually know the manufacturers and the asbestos content of the products that caused their injuries, but refuse to say until it suits them. The truth, of course, is that people dying of mesothelioma, or their survivors, do not always know the manufacturers at fault. That information sometimes comes to light as the result of hours upon hours of investigation by plaintiffs counsel - searching out Navy records in federal archives, combing through old invoices on Microfiche and tracking down elderly coworkers, often unknown by the plaintiff, to test their memories about products and tasks as dim in their minds as a recollection of what they had for lunch 30 years ago. There is no oracle. Lawyers for mesothelioma victims are forced to work to identify the manufacturers and others at fault for the plaintiffs injuries. And the culmination of that effort is their attorney work product. Coito v. Superior Court, 54 Cal.4th 480, 494 (Cal. 2012). Garlock apparently persuaded Judge Hodges that in Treggett, plaintiffs counsel also should have proved up Garlock s case as well. But a lawyer representing the plaintiff has an ethical duty to his client, not to his client s adversary. Under the ethical principles governing attorney conduct in California, Mr. Treggett s counsel owed him a zealous representation and the highest duty of care to protect his... interests. Munoz v. Davis, 141 Cal.App.3d 420, 430 (Cal. App. 1983) (Citations omitted). That duty is inconsistent with a duty to make sure his client s adversary s claim is timely filed, competently pursued and adequately compensated. Id. (emphasis added) This basic principle, far from perverted, is also embodied in California s law governing discovery. California Code of Civil Procedure Section (c) provides that when a party responding to discovery lacks personal knowledge sufficient to respond fully, the party shall make a good faith effort to obtain the information, except where the information is equally available to the propounding party. Longsettled California authority explains that [t]he purpose of the Discovery Act is to permit a party to prepare himself for trial and to discover any relevant admissible evidence or matters reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, it does not require one party to, at his expense, prepare the case of his opponent. Ryan v. Superior Court, 186 Cal.App.2d 813, 819 (Cal. App. 1060)(emphasis added); see also Holguin v. Superior Court, 22 Cal.App.3d 812, 821(Cal. App. 1972)( We know of no principle of discovery law which thus compels a party not only to prepare his opponent s case, but also to stipulate away his own. ) Had Mr. Treggett actually possessed personal knowledge or other evidence of the manufacturers of the asbestos pipe insulation installed aboard the USS John Marshall, then of course, he and his lawyers would have been ethically bound to disclose those discoverable facts under CCP (c), as well as California Rule of Professional Conduct 5-200, governing a lawyer s duty of candor to the court. But Garlock established nothing of the sort. Even to this day, Garlock has not established that Mr. Treggert had knowledge of specific asbestos exposure that he failed to disclose during the Treggert litigation. And what Mr. Treggett s lawyers believed based on their work product in other cases was privileged from discovery under California s work product doctrine. Coito v. Superior Court, 54Cal.4th 480, 494 (Cal. 2012). Indeed, one of the purposes of the work product privilege is to prevent attorneys from taking undue advantage of their adversary s industry and efforts. Id. at 496 (citation omitted). Imagine a pedestrian made quadriplegic in a crash between a Walmart truck driver texting his wife and a white Ford Focus missing any license plates that fled the scene. Walmart might want to defend itself by placing some blame on the missing Ford. But it could hardly be described as perverted for the plaintiff s attorney to pursue her case against Walmart alone. The task of finding the missing Ford would fall fairly to Walmart, which would stand to gain the most. The same is true for Garlock in a mesotheliomacaselikemr.treggett swheretheplaintiff does not know and would have no reason to know the identity of all the companies that caused his 7

10 Vol. 13, #12 July 2014 MEALEY S Asbestos Bankruptcy Report injuries. Garlock was not dependent upon Mr. Treggett or without means to conduct its own discovery to prepare its defense. As the California Supreme Court has observed: An attorney who seeks to discover what a witness knows is not without recourse. The attorney is free to interview the witness for himself or herself to find out what information the witness has that is relevant to the litigation. Coito, 54 Cal.4th at 496. The evidence that Garlock belatedly scrambled to create at trial concerning Mr. Treggett s exposure to other manufacturers asbestos products was equally available to Garlock as to Mr. Treggett, who was therefore under no obligation to conduct an investigation on Garlock s behalf. See Cal. CCP (c), discussed supra. Garlock could have gone to the trouble of proving its own defense by locating archival records or coworkers it believed would prove at trial that Unibestos was installed aboard the USS John Marshall. It could have consulted the site lists published on the Internet by asbestos bankruptcy trusts. In an article published after the Treggett verdict, defense counsel representing another defendant in the case described the many steps that asbestos defendants can take to identify and prove additional responsible parties in an asbestos case. Limiting Liability At Trial Through Evidence Of Exposure To Other Products CORPORATE COUNSEL (February 2005) A8&9. Though the authors placed obtaining proof of claim forms from asbestos bankruptcy trusts right at the top of their list, they also included a host of other recommended investigative tools. In short, Garlock could have engaged in just the sort of work that plaintiffs counsel in mesothelioma litigation have been forced to undertake for decades. But California law imposed on Mr. Treggett s counsel no duty to conduct a probe that could only harm, rather than help, their clients. Ryan, supra, 186 Cal.App.2d at 819. Curiously, Garlock chose not to conduct its own investigation in the Treggett case or to use the evidence already in its possession tending to show that Unibestos was installed aboard the USS John Marshall. As Mr. Treggett s trial was underway in California, Garlock was also in trial in Virginia in another mesothelioma case in which the decedent had been exposed to asbestos at Newport News Shipyard, also while working on the USS John Marshall. Garlock Sealing Technologies, LLC v. Little, 620 S.E.2d 773 (Va. 2005). Mr. Zebulon Little testified by deposition that he had worked on the submarine in the 1961 to 1963 time frame, using Garlock gaskets and being exposed to Kayo [sic] and Unibestos pipe covering, which were installed by pipe coverers working nearby. Little, Trial Transcript ( ), at 35, 37-38, and 58. Though Mr. Treggett did not know the manufacturer of the pipe covering aboard the USS John Marshall, Mr. Little had seen many boxes of Unibestos pipe covering out on the pier at Newport News, lined up and ready for use by the workers. Id. at 58. Indeed, the manufacturer of Unibestos, Pittsburgh Corning, appeared on the verdict form in the Little case, with the jury assigning that company a two percent share of responsibility for Mr. Little s injuries. Little, Verdict Form. The jury might similarly have assigned Pittsburgh Corning a two percent share of responsibility in Mr. Treggett s case had Garlock chosen to present evidence that the product was installed on the John Marshall and that it was defective. 5 Garlock had long had in its possession far more evidence concerning Unibestos than was introduced in Little. As a party for decades to the multitude of asbestos cases filed in Newport News, Virginia, where the USS John Marshall was constructed, Garlock had access to the deposition of Clarence Holland the primary salesman of asbestos products to the Newport News Shipyard for twenty years along with all of the purchase orders produced and depositions of plaintiffs, coworkers and corporate representatives taken in that litigation. Contrary to its assertions in the estimation hearing, it was no mystery to Garlock whether Unibestos or any other asbestos product was installed aboard the USS John Marshall. It can only be speculated as to why Garlock elected towithholdtheevidenceinitspossessionabout the asbestos products installed aboard the submarine on which Mr. Treggett served. But Mr. Treggett s counsel was under no ethical obligation to root out 8

11 MEALEY S Asbestos Bankruptcy Report Vol. 13, #12 July 2014 evidence that might support Garlock s defense; to the contrary, Mr. Treggett s lawyers were ethically bound to protect their own clients interests. Conclusion In the estimation order Judge Hodges entered in the Garlock Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in January, the Court leveled several criticisms at unnamed plaintiffs counsel representing mesothelioma victims in cases against the debtor. But a review of the facts and the law regarding at least one of cases highlighted by Judge Hodges reveals that his treatment of Treggett v. Garlock is founded on a mistaken recitation of the facts and a confusion about the level of proof of product exposure required in court and in the asbestos bankruptcy trusts. Finally, the order further reflects a misapprehension about plaintiffs counsel s ethical responsibilities to their clients, the courts and their adversaries. Endnotes 1. See Appellant s Opening Brief ( Garlock Brief ), filed in Treggett v. Garlock Sealing Technologies, No. B (Cal. App. 2d Dist., Div. 2)(October 14, 2005), at 4-6,18-19 (describing the plaintiff s work as a machinist s mate aboard a nuclear submarine, the Los Angeles jury s $18.7 million compensatory award for which Garlock was found 40 percent at fault and the substantial $15 million punitive award); 2006 Form 10-K, Enpro Industries, Inc. (Garlock estimation hearing Exhibit ACC-169), at 34 ( During the second quarter of 2006, Garlock settled an appeal of a 2004 adverse verdict in Los Angeles. Garlock paid the full amount of the compensatory damages plus statutory post-judgment interest, but the substantial punitive damage award was not paid. The settlement agreement was reached at the same time as settlement with the same plaintiffs law firm on that entire firm s pending cases for the remainder of ); and 3 VERDICT SEARCH CALIFORNIA 44: 5-6 (November 15, 2004). Given the jury s finding that Garlock was 40 percent at fault, the ultimate settlement that the company paid in 2006 amounted to roughly $9 million. 2. Acknowledging the difficulty, the Ohio appellate court observed: We are aware of the great difficulty in presenting evidence of substantial exposure that is created by the passage of time. Employees do not usually record the names of products and the frequency of their exposure to them. The years cause memories to fade. However, these conditions cannot create an exception to the requirement that substantial exposure be proved by a claimant to support liability or that evidence of the same be presented in response to a motion for summary judgment. Id. at *5. 3. Though Garlock claimed in the estimation hearing that the linchpin of its defense in Treggett was that the plaintiff s mesothelioma was caused by his alleged exposure to Unibestos, this is not borne out by Garlock s conduct at the trial. Garlock s counsel made no mention of Unibestos during his opening statement; Kelly-Moore s counsel questioned Mr. Treggett about his lack of knowledge of Unibestos during trial; and Yarway s counsel made the unsupported reference to Unibestos during closing argument. Trial Transcript ( ) at 41-49, ; ( ) at Garlock s choice to entrust the presentation of its purported Unibestos defense entirely to lawyers working on behalf of other companies casts doubt on its post hoc claim in the bankruptcy court that the defense was essential to its trial strategy in Treggett. 4. Among the asbestos bankruptcy trusts that had not been opened on October 20, 2004, the day of the jury s verdict in Treggett, are the following: Halliburton ( ) Babcock & Wilcox ( ) Combustion Engineering ( ) CE Thurston ( ) ABB Lummus ( ) US Gypsum ( ) Armstrong World Industries ( ) Fibreboard ( ) Owens Corning ( ) Porter Hayden ( ) AC&S ( ) Raytech ( ) Flexitallic ( ). 9

12 Vol. 13, #12 July 2014 MEALEY S Asbestos Bankruptcy Report 5. Evidence of product exposure alone would not have been sufficient to apportion responsibility to another entity in California. Garlock would also have had to prove other tortious elements to permit the placement of Pittsburgh Corning on the line as a responsible party elements such as the company s failure to warn, for example. See Saffold v. Bondex International, Inc. (2011) B (Cal. App.)(not for publication). See also CACI 1201, 1202, 1203 and VF-402 (CACI Oct Ed.). There is no evidence that Garlock met this additional burden in the Treggett case, even if ballots or 2019 statements from bankruptcy trusts were sufficient to provide the evidence of product exposure that Garlock failed to offer itself. 10

13

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