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Temple-Inland Products Corp. v. Carter4/29/1999
On Application for Writ of Error to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth District of Texas
Argued on October 21, 1998
The sole issue in this case is whether a person who has been exposed to asbestos but does not have an asbestos-related disease may recover damages for fear of the possibility of developing such a disease in the future. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendant on plaintiff's claims for actual and punitive damages. A divided court of appeals reversed only on the actual damages claim. For reasons we explain, the district court was correct.
I.
Temple-Inland Forest Products Corporation employed Biskamp Electric to install electric outlets and computer jacks in a laboratory at one of its paper mills. In performing the installation, two Biskamp employees, Martin Reeves Carter Sr. and Larry Wilson, drilled holes in laboratory countertops, which they did not know and were not told contained asbestos. The drilling generated dust containing asbestos fibers to which Carter and Wilson were exposed. They had no protective gear to prevent them from inhaling the dust. Carter worked on the project from four to six weeks, and Wilson worked on it about two weeks. Not until the work was almost complete did the laboratory manager warn Carter and Wilson of the asbestos, at which point they stopped work on the project. Temple-Inland then tested and decontaminated the lab.
Some eighteen months later Carter and Wilson were examined by Dr. Daniel Jenkins, to whom they had been referred by their attorney. Although Dr. Jenkins concluded that neither Carter nor Wilson had any asbestos-related disease, they sued Temple-Inland for mental anguish damages caused by its having negligently exposed them to asbestos fibers. Carter and Wilson also alleged that Temple-Inland had failed to develop a hazard communication program as required by federal regulation to protect persons working on its premises.
Dr. Jenkins testified at his deposition that Wilson complained of shortness of breath on exertion, that Wilson's X-ray showed some bilateral pleural thickening, and that his pulmonary function report suggested some obstruction in the small peripheral airways. According to Dr. Jenkins, Wilson's shortness of breath and pleural thickening were possibly related to his obesity, and the pleural thickening could have been related to a history of asbestos exposure predating the Temple-Inland work. Dr. Jenkins did not attribute any of Wilson's symptoms to his exposure to asbestos on Temple-Inland's premises and agreed that that exposure was probably too recent to have resulted in any of Wilson's conditions, given the long latency period ordinarily involved in asbestos-related diseases. Carter's X-ray showed no abnormalities whatever, and his pulmonary function was close to normal. Dr. Jenkins thus concluded that Wilson and Carter suffered from no disease as a result of their exposure to asbestos and that they were not disabled. In their depositions Carter and Wilson reported no other symptoms.
Dr. Jenkins, however, insisted that Wilson and Carter had been injured by their exposure to asbestos and probable inhalation of asbestos fibers at the Temple-Inland lab. He estimated that the chances of their developing a disease as a result had increased from one in a million, which he estimated to be the risk that a person would ever develop a disease from asbestos exposure not occupationally related, to about one in 500,000 for the next ten or fifteen years, and as much as one in 100 over twenty or thirty years. Dr. Jenkins characterized plaintiffs' risk as a "high possibility" but not a probability.
Based on the depositions of
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