SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – A former maker of asbestos-containing pipe might have thought it had avoided paying a $1.6 million verdict, but the California Supreme Court has given new life to the lawsuit.
The court ruled May 21 against Keenan Properties, Inc., in the lawsuit by Frank Hart, a laborer who claimed to be exposed to Keenan’s product while working for Christeve from 1976-77.
The main issue decided in the opinion was whether the testimony of a co-worker, who placed Keenan products at a worksite when he remembered Keenan invoices by the company’s circled-K logo, was admissible or if it was hearsay. A trial court admitted the statement, leading to the jury verdict, but a court of appeal ruled it was hearsay and struck the verdict.
The Supreme Court has found it admissible and remanded the case to an intermediate appellate court to work out some other issues.
Keenan did not preserve sales records from the time in question, so plaintiffs lawyers introduced testimony from Hart’s supervisor, foreman John Glamuzina. Keenan complained that Glamuzina was 81 years old and testifying about things that happened 40 years earlier.
Glamuzina said the invoices must be from Keenan because they had on them “their K and stuff.” Keenan says Glamuzina never fully explained what he meant.
“It was not unreasonable to infer Glamuzina was referring to the K logo acknowledge by Keenan’s representative,” says the opinion, written by Justice Carol Ann Corrigan.
The court ruled Glamuzina’s recollection of the K logo was circumstantial evidence of identity, not proof of the truth of matters asserted in the invoice.
“Instead, his observations were circumstantial evidence of Keenan’s identity as the source of the pipes,” Corrigan wrote.
Keenan also complained the invoices were not available and could not be authenticated, but the court ruled against that argument – “(T)he Harts never possessed the documents and were not responsible for their destruction,” Corrigan wrote.
Now that the hearsay issue is decided, there are “other contentions left unresolved” for the Court of Appeal to take up now, the opinion says.