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Jones v. A-Best Products Co.12/11/2003
JUDGMENT: Reversed and remanded.
. Plaintiff-appellant, Earl M. Jones, appeals the trial court granting summary judgment to defendant-appellee, Tasco Insulations, Inc. fka The Asbestos Service Company ("Tasco"). For the reasons that follow, we agree with plaintiff.
. From March 1959 until June 1999, plaintiff was employed by Republic Steel at its Warren, Ohio facility. Over the years, plaintiff performed jobs throughout the plant in different capacities. Evidence establishes that, intermittently during plaintiff's employment, Tasco sold, delivered, and installed various asbestos-containing products at the Republic facility.
. Frank Gross, a truck driver for Tasco, testified during deposition that he made approximately one hundred deliveries to the Warren plant between 1953 and 1957. Gross identified some of the asbestos-containing products he delivered there, including pipe covering, block, cement, cloth, and paper. Gross stated that the deliveries were made to one of two places depending on whether Republic had purchased asbestos-containing products for its own use or whether the product was for an installation job Tasco had been hired to perform at the plant. Gross stated, " ither [Republic] bought it or we used it as a job."
. If Republic purchased Tasco products for its own employees to use/install, Gross delivered those products to Republic's own storeroom. When he delivered "the insulation pipe covering and block" directly to the plant storeroom, he had his "order sheet signed *." Other times, when the products were going to be used on an installation job Tasco had at the plant, Gross delivered those materials to Tasco's designated job site at the plant.
. Exhibit K, attached to plaintiff's brief in opposition to Tasco's motion for summary judgment, contains numerous invoices, dated for the years from 1955 through 1962 and from 1966 through 1971. Most of the invoices are for large quantities of Kaylo pipe insulation manufactured by Owens-Corning and sold to Tasco.
. One of plaintiff's co-workers, Joseph Gilford, stated he first met plaintiff in 1961. At that time, plaintiff was working in the combination mill, next door to the pickle house in the same building. Later in his deposition, Gilford stated that he had seen plaintiff working in the pickle house as well. Gilford testified that Tasco was supplying pipe covering to the plant on a monthly basis from 1961 through to 1965. He saw the word asbestos on the pipe-covering supplied by Tasco. He stated that Tasco's product was used/installed by Republic's own employees/millwrights to wrap "pipes in the pickle house * ." Gilford stated plaintiff worked with pipe wrapping that contained asbestos and that Owens-Corning made.
. According to Donald Harrison, past-president of Tasco, The Asbestos Service Company changed its name to Tasco on August 15, 1979. In an affidavit, Harrison states he worked for The Asbestos Service Company and then Tasco from 1969 to the end of 2000. Harrison says that at no time during his years with the company did it ever manufacture, sell, provide or install any of the asbestos products plaintiff claims caused his illness. He does, however, confirm that the company made deliveries of products to the Republic plant in the "`50's through the `80's." Harrison also admitted Tasco was a member of the National Contractor's Association since the 1950's and that members knew in the 1960's that asbestos was a potential health hazard.
. In 1998, plaintiff was diagnosed with asbestosis. Plaintiff filed suit against multiple parties because of his occupational exposure to asbestos and products containing asbestos.
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