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Eagle-Picher Industries Inc. v. Balbos8/29/1990
because Eagle-Picher failed to reproduce either the motion or the trial judge's denial of the motion in the record extract. Maryland Rule 8-501 mandates that " he record extract shall contain all parts of the record reasonably necessary for the determination of the questions presented by the appeal." As the Court of Appeals pointed out in Caroline v. Reicher, 269 Md. 125, 137, 304 A.2d 831(1973), "The cases are legion in this Court in support of our authority not to decide issues not presented in conformity with this rule."
Finally, we observe that the trial judge specifically instructed the jury to consider the evidence from the Brislin
deposition only against three of four of the defendants that he named. Eagle-Picher was not among the defendants the judge listed. We conclude that even if Eagle-Picher's IHF membership card and Dr. Braun's 1985 deposition testimony pertaining to Eagle-Picher were irrelevant, the error in admitting them was harmless. See Proctor v. Holden, 75 Md. App. 1, 15-17, 540 A.2d 133, cert. denied, 313 Md. 506, 545 A.2d 1343(1988) (even assuming testimony about resale price of disputed home was irrelevant, error in admitting testimony was harmless in light of trial judge's corrective instructions).
17.
The trial court erred in ruling that conservation orders published in the Federal Register regulating use of asbestos from 1942 to 1945 could not be presented to the jury.
In January 1942 a federal agency (apparently the Office of Production Management) published in the Federal Register a "conservation order," which stated, in part, that:
Whereas national defense requirements have created a shortage of certain types of asbestos for the combined needs of defense, private account, and export; and the supply now is and will be insufficient for defense and essential civilian requirements unless their use in certain products manufactured for civilian use is curtailed; and it is necessary in the public interest, to promote the defense of the United States, to conserve the supply and direct the distribution thereof. . . .
At trial, counsel for Eagle-Picher requested that the judge take judicial notice of this and other, apparently similar, conservation orders. Counsel for appellees objected on the grounds that, inter alia, the conservation orders were irrelevant. In response to the trial judge's request for an explanation of the orders' relevance, counsel for Eagle-Picher said that the orders
provide a framework for the evaluation of conduct that occurred over 40 years ago. . . . Here is a law that says that asbestos is essential and we have got to conserve it.
I think that that bears on the entire country's mind-set toward whether this is a dangerous substance that has to be tested and we have to determine whether or not somebody, 30 years from now somebody is going to get sick from it. I think that is the farthest thing from anybody's mind in 1942 and these regulations tend to bear that out and the conduct that is being evaluated should be evaluated in that framework.
The trial judge sustained appellees' objection to the conservation orders. Contending, on appeal, that the trial judge erred in his ruling, Eagle-Picher again argues that the conservation orders were relevant evidence. We note first that " rial judges are vested with wide discretion as to rulings on the relevancy of proffered evidence." Fleming v. Prince George's County, 277 Md. 655, 680, 358 A.2d 892(1976). See also McCray v. State, 305 Md. 1
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 Maryland Personal Injury Attorneys
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