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Eagle-Picher Industries Inc. v. Balbos8/29/1990
ore the products are sold. Id. at 1089-90. The actual knowledge of an individual manufacturer is not the issue. If the dangers of asbestos were known to Johns-Manville at the time of Dartez's exposure, then the same risks were scientifically discoverable by other asbestos corporations . . . .
765 F.2d at 461. Thus, the Dartez court concluded, "the knowledge of one manufacturer can be a proper basis for concluding that another manufacturer should have warned of a specific danger." Id.
Eagle-Picher argues that the trial judge should have granted its motion for judgment because appellees failed to present legally sufficient evidence that Eagle-Picher's failure to place warnings on its products amounted to negligence. According to the company, its conduct "must . . . be evaluated in light of what it knew or should have known at and before [the decedents'] last mesothelioma-producing exposure to its products." Eagle-Picher then goes on to discuss various testimony and exhibits which, the company contends, indicate that it neither knew nor should have known that its asbestos-containing products were harmful.
Appellees argue that the evidence they presented at trial was sufficient to permit a reasonable inference that Eagle-Picher
knew or should have known of the dangers regarding its asbestos-containing products, and that the company negligently failed to warn the decedents of those dangers. We agree.
Appellees presented evidence of an article written in 1936 that mentioned patients who had died after prolonged exposure to asbestos dust. Eagle-Picher admits that this article was received by the company's research library in January 1938. Appellees also presented a report, written by an Eagle-Picher salesman named H.M. Aber, to three Eagle-Picher employees in April 1942, telling them of an article he had read on the subject of asbestos. Aber warned, " f you think mineral wool is dangerous you should read this." Thus, it was reasonable to infer that Eagle-Picher had actual knowledge of the dangers of asbestos as early as 1942.
Based upon this evidence, it could reasonably be inferred that Eagle-Picher, in 1938 and even more likely by 1942, knew or should have known of the dangers regarding its asbestos-containing products. Because the dangers were "inherent and hidden," Eagle-Picher had a duty to warn of those dangers. Moran, supra. Assuming "all credible evidence tending to sustain the claim of negligence" and drawing "all favorable inferences of fact fairly deducible therefrom tending to establish negligence," we believe there was legally sufficient evidence tending to prove that Eagle-Picher was negligent in failing to provide the decedents with a warning prior to 1964. Banks v. Iron Hustler Corp., supra. The trial judge was correct in leaving the weight and value of such evidence to the jury.
Porter Hayden argues that, because it did not actually manufacture asbestos-containing products (it only installed insulation), it did not have the manufacturer's duty to inspect the products. According to Porter Hayden, the trial court should have directed judgment in its favor in the Balbos case because appellee in that case failed to introduce evidence that Porter Hayden knew or should have known that its installation work at the Fairfield Shipyards from
1942 through 1944 could injure other workers in the shipyard. We disagree. As the Court of Appeals noted in Woolley v. Uebelhor, 239 Md. 318, 325, 211 A.2d 302(1965),
A vendor of a chattel which another has manufactured who sells it knowing that it is or is likely to be dangerous has the liability of a manufacture
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