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Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Garrett8/28/1996
The plaintiffs/appellees brought suit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City against numerous manufacturers and distributors of asbestos products, alleging negligence and strict liability for failure to warn of the dangers of the asbestos products. Two of the plaintiffs were men suffering from asbestos-related mesothelioma, and another was the surviving wife of a man who had died of mesothelioma. Their cases were consolidated for trial. Today we address the numerous issues raised in appeals from judgments entered following the consolidated trial, in which three of the direct defendants were found liable by the jury for varying amounts of compensatory damages and punitive damages were assessed against one of those defendants. We affirm all the liability verdicts and the compensatory damages awarded by the jury, and reverse the punitive damages award for lack of sufficient clear and convincing evidence of actual malice.
I.
A. Overview
These suits were brought to recover damages resulting from asbestos exposure experienced by Harvey Scruggs, Ralph Garrett, and William Hohman. All three men worked with or near asbestos products for several years in a variety of jobs, described in more detail in the following paragraphs and later in the opinion when relevant to our analysis. Mr. Scruggs and Mr. Garrett, still alive when suit was instituted, have since died of malignant pleural mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer believed by medical experts to be caused almost exclusively by exposure to and inhalation of asbestos dust. Lenora Scruggs, as personal representative of Mr. Scruggs' estate, and Louis Bittner, as personal representative of Mr. Garrett's estate, were substituted as plaintiffs at trial and are appellees in this case. Mr. Hohman died in 1986 of mesothelioma and his wife Jeanette instituted suit both as personal representative of his estate and on her own behalf; she too died during trial and the personal representative of her estate, her daughter, Victoria Croghan, was substituted as a plaintiff in her mother's wrongful death action and as the successor personal representative of the estate of William Hohman. She is the third appellee in this case. For convenience, however, we will refer to the three men who died of mesothelioma, rather than their personal representatives, when discussing the issues presented in this appeal.
The three defendants/appellants before us are Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation (hereinafter "OCF"), Porter Hayden Company (hereinafter "PH") and Owens-Illinois, Inc. (hereinafter "OI"). PH was an insulation distributor and installer in industrial facilities around Baltimore. OCF and OI manufactured and distributed products containing asbestos, notably pipe and boiler insulation. From the late 1940's to 1953, OI manufactured and distributed Kaylo, an insulation material containing asbestos. From 1953 to 1958, although OI was still the manufacturer of Kaylo, OCF distributed the product; in 1958, OCF bought the Kaylo manufacturing facility from OI and continued to manufacture and distribute Kaylo until 1972, when asbestos-free Kaylo was introduced. The other direct and cross-claim defendants in this consolidated case are not parties to this appeal, although liability of cross-claim defendants is an issue and will be addressed in part III, section B, (infra).
B. Harvey Scruggs
From 1968 to 1972, Mr. Scruggs was an equipment mechanic apprentice and journeyman at the Curtis Bay Coast Guard Shipyard in Baltimore as a civilian employee of the Navy. In 1970, for a two-month period of time, Mr. Scruggs was also trained to be and worked as a pipecoverer. During those four years, according to his own testimony, he worked
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