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Eagle-Picher Industries Inc. v. Balbos8/29/1990
26, 133, 501 A.2d 856(1985); Fidelity Deposit Co. v. Olney Associates, Inc., 72 Md. App. 367, 372, 530 A.2d 1(1987). Thus, we would only conclude that the trial judge erred if we perceived an abuse of discretion. We perceive no such abuse of discretion. As Eagle-Picher appears to admit, no evidence was produced to show that Eagle-Picher relied upon the conservation orders in any way. In addition, the fact that a federal regulation required Americans to conserve asbestos had no bearing on the central issue in the cases before us: whether Eagle-Picher and the other defendants were negligent in failing to warn Balbos and Knuckles about the dangers of asbestos. Nothing in the one conservation order reproduced in the record extract precluded Eagle-Picher from placing warnings on their products. We have no reason to believe the other conservation orders contained a prohibition against such warnings either.
18.
The trial court erred in ruling that documentary evidence from the Asbestos Textile Institute was admissible against Eagle-Picher.
The Asbestos Textile Institute (ATI) is a trade association of asbestos textile manufacturers and miners of asbestos
fiber. Through the deposition of Doris Fagen, ATI's executive secretary, the appellees introduced minutes of various ATI meetings. The most damaging of these documents was from a February 1971 meeting at which an ATI member named Dr. J.C. Goodman criticized Dr. Erving J. Selikoff, who was publicizing the links between asbestos and diseases. Goodman stated, inter alia, that "Dr. Selikoff is a . . . dangerous man, and the asbestos industry is going to have to learn to combat his tactics."
Fagen testified in her deposition that all ATI members receive copies of the minutes of the meetings. Eagle-Picher is not a member of ATI. On appeal, Eagle-Picher argues (1) that Fagen's deposition was never admitted against Eagle-Picher and thus never authenticated against that appellant, and (2) that the minutes of the ATI meetings were irrelevant as to Eagle-Picher and should not have been admitted against it.
A. Fagen's Deposition
In contending that Fagen's deposition was not admitted against it, Eagle-Picher points to only one page of the record extract for support. On that page, counsel for appellees announced to the jury that the deposition was being offered "against Raybestos Manhattan and H.K. Porter Company." Counsel made no mention of Eagle-Picher at that point.
This page, however, does not resolve the issue. Only moments before appellees' counsel made that statement to the jury, the trial judge said, "It seems to me the safest thing to do is to offer [the deposition] against those who were present at the deposition." When the judge then asked appellees' counsel to list the parties who had attended the deposition, counsel included Eagle-Picher.
Following the reading of Fagen's deposition, the discussion turned to admission of the ATI minutes themselves. The trial judge again asked appellees' counsel which parties had been at the deposition. Counsel obliged by listing Eagle-Picher, H.K. Porter, Raymark, Owens-Corning, and Pittsburgh Corning. Of these companies, only Raymark and H.K. Porter appear to have been members of ATI and thus recipients of the ATI minutes. The judge then instructed the jury as follows:
Members of the jury, the evidence, which the Plaintiff is now about to present to you through the reading of documents, is introduced first against these two defendants, Raymark and H.K. Porter as evidence of knowledge of the contents of those documents. As to H.K.
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