Editor’s note: This article is part of a series examining evidence submitted in Garlock Sealing Technologies’ bankruptcy proceeding that was recently unsealed as a result of Legal Newsline’s legal challenge.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Legal Newsline) – The largest asbestos verdict ever delivered against Garlock Sealing Technologies – $24 million – happened because the company wasn’t allowed to show evidence that the plaintiff was exposed to the product Unibestos, the company claimed.
However, that plaintiff had already claimed Pittsburgh Corning, a company that made Unibestos, was also responsible for his injuries, courts records show.
Recently unsealed evidence and 2013 testimony from Garlock detailed the case of Robert Treggett, whose case resulted in a $24 million verdict against the company.
Charles R. Jonas Federal Building in Charlotte, N.C.
Treggett was a Navy machinist’s mate who worked on a nuclear submarine. He alleged the exposure to asbestos on gaskets made by Garlock and others were to blame for his mesothelioma.
Seventy percent of his time was spent replacing gaskets, he said.
However, Garlock knew what types of products were on the site where Treggett worked.
But it couldn’t prove specifically that Unibestos was there, and former Waters & Kraus attorney Ron Eddins successfully prevented the jury from being able to decide if Unibestos was to blame for Treggett’s illness.
“And he further testified – this is what really galled me about this case is that Mr. Eddins in his closing argument actually testified to the jury that we couldn’t – we couldn’t do [prove Unibestos was on the worksite] because it’s not true,” testified Richard Magee, senior vice president for Garlock’s parent company EnPro.
“And he said there’s not a single piece of evidence that puts Unibestos aboard the boat. So not only did he argue that we hadn’t proven that; he told the jury that it wasn’t true. So that was very, very frustrating.”
But if Garlock had had access to certain documents filed by Treggett’s attorneys, it would have had that access.
Months before the trial, which took place in 2004 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Treggett’s attorneys had cast a ballot on his behalf in the Pittsburgh Corning bankruptcy.
The ballot was never disclosed to Garlock. After the trial, Treggett’s attorneys submitted claims to 14 asbestos bankruptcy trusts.
Six of the claims were based on Treggett’s work at the Mare Island shipyard. During his tort claim against Garlock, he’d claimed his time there was spent in a classroom and that he never went on board a ship.
“The claim forms painted a starkly different picture of his exposure history, claiming that at Mare Island he worked in the ‘shipyard repair/construction industry’ and ‘altered, repaired or otherwise worked with an asbestos-containing product such that [he] was exposed on a regular basis to asbestos fibers,’ and ‘was employed manipulating asbestos products,’” a Garlock memo says.
Ultimately, Garlock settled Treggett’s case after the trial rather than pay a $36 million bond to appeal.
Unable to allege that bankrupt companies were to blame for Treggett’s asbestos exposure, the jury had found Garlock 40 percent liable for the plaintiff’s injury.
“If the jury had been permitted to know that Mr. Treggett was going to file trust claims against lots of insulation defendants, then all of a sudden it wouldn’t have been Garlock – you saw Mr. Eddins’ words about how Garlock’s the one trying to point to amosite; Garlock’s the one trying to blame someone else,” Magee testified.
“If that had been the case, the jury would have known that Mr. Treggett acknowledged Amphibole insulation exposure and it wouldn’t have been just Garlock trying to demonstrate it.
“It would have been coming from the claimant’s mouth himself.”
All the evidence was relied upon by Bankruptcy Judge George Hodges, who ruled in 2014 that Garlock needed to put $125 million in its asbestos bankruptcy trust – roughly $1 billion less than what plaintiffs attorneys had requested.
Hodges ruled that cases like Treggett’s showed that Garlock’s settlement and verdict history in the tort system had been tainted by plaintiffs attorneys who misrepresented their clients’ exposures to asbestos in order to maximize recovery against Garlock.
Garlock was permitted full discovery into 17 cases when it made its argument.
“It appears certain that more extensive discovery would show more extensive abuse,” Hodges wrote. “But that is not necessary because the startling pattern of misrepresentation that has been shown is sufficiently persuasive.”
Garlock has since reached a $360 million settlement to provide funds to future asbestos claimants. It has also filed racketeering lawsuits against four plaintiffs firms, including Waters & Kraus.
From Legal Newsline: Reach editor John O’Brien at [email protected].
