ALAMEDA, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – A California jury has found for Honeywell in the nation’s first asbestos trial held on Zoom, refusing a plaintiff’s arguments for $70 million.
Jurors on Tuesday began deliberations on the case of Ricardo Ocampo, who claims he contracted peritoneal mesothelioma while a maintenance worker in an auto dealership. The jury form released Thursday indicates Honeywell proved it adequately warned Bendix brake pads contained asbestos.
It also reasonably relied on General Motors to convey those warnings. Honeywell’s lawyer, David Ongaro of Ongaro PC, argued epidemiological studies showed brake mechanics do not have a higher risk of mesothelioma and that other studies say peritoneal mesothelioma isn’t exposed by exposure to asbestos.
In the Ocampo case, Honeywell filed a “notice of irregularities” complaining of inattentive jurors including one who was emailing from a different computer and an alternate who was watching from bed. The original judge in the Ocampo case, Frank Roesch, recused himself after accidentally revealing online that he thought he had been exposed to asbestos from brakes and hoped it wasn’t enough to give him mesothelioma.
Alameda Superior Court Judge Jo-Lynne Lee took over the Honeywell trial for Roesch. She began the final phase by instructing jurors on the elements Ocampo’s lawyers must prove to win damages from Honeywell, including that its Bendix unit sold brakes to the dealership or they were in GM cars serviced on site, that they contained asbestos, that Bendix should have warned of the cancer risk, and that asbestos dust from the company’s products were a “substantial factor in causing harm” to the plaintiff.
Attorney Peter C. Beirne of the Paul Law Firm, representing Ocampo, told jurors to “bring your common sense to determine what is more likely than not to have occurred,” reminding them of the standard for civil liability, which is substantially lower than in criminal cases. He also suggested Honeywell had withheld evidence from the jury, noting “missing pages” from documents the company presented in its defense.
By 1991, when Ocampo began working there, the dealership would have to follow strict safety procedures when handling asbestos brakes including respirators, hazmat suits, special filters for vacuum cleaners, and all the floor waste Ocampo swept up would have to be bagged and sent to a certified landfill. None of the dealerships, which belonged to a large corporate chain, had any such measures, Ongaro said, suggesting they knew they weren’t risking an Occupational Safety and Health Administration fine by handling asbestos brakes.
The defense lawyer also ridiculed Beirne’s claim Honeywell had withheld documents, saying the company turned over more than 250,000 pages to plaintiff lawyers.
“If there were missing pages, Mr. Beirne would have brought them to you,” he said.
The plaintiff presented expert testimony from doctors and an industrial hygienist who said asbestos dust from brake pads could have caused Ocampo’s illness. But they all started with the assumption the car dealership handled asbestos brake pads and they were manufactured by Bendix, Ongaro said, two points plaintiffs never proved.
By 1991, when Ocampo started sweeping floors at the car dealerships, there had been seven epidemiological studies showing no increased cancer risk to brake mechanics, he added, so there was no reason Bendix would have been required to place a warning label on the product.
In his final rebuttal argument, Beirne repeated his allegation Honeywell had withheld documents, saying Honeywell did “a document dump so it’s difficult to find those documents.” He also referred to an infamous 1966 letter by a Honeywell executive who said “if you have enjoyed a good life while working with asbestos products, why not die from it.”
It’s the first of two expected verdicts as Alameda County tries to push through the problems posed by COVID-19. The other might be delayed or even cancelled as defendant Metalclad attempts to have a mistrial declared.