Title: Georgia-Pacific v. Pransky

State: maryland

Issuer: Maryland Supreme Court

Document:

Georgia-Pacific Corporation v. Lisa J. Pransky, et al.
No. 107, Sept. Term, 2001
Asbestos:
(1) Causation with respect to bystander.  Eagle-Picher v. Balbos
(2) When cause of action arises for purposes of Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article,
§ 11-108(b)(1).
Circuit Court for Montgomery County
Case No. 188363
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND
No. 107
September Term, 2001
_____________________________________
GEORGIA-PACIFIC CORPORATION
v.
LISA J. PRANSKY et al.
______________________________________
Bell, C.J.
Eldridge
Raker
Wilner
Cathell
Harrell
Battaglia,
   JJ.
_____________________________________
Opinion by Wilner, J.
______________________________________
Filed:   June 11, 2002
After concluding that Lisa Pransky contracted mesothelioma from her exposure to an
asbestos-containing joint compound manufactured and distributed by petitioner, Georgia-
Pacific Corporation, a jury in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County awarded Ms.
Pransky and her husband damages of $9,188,000.  Of that sum, $4,800,000 was for Ms.
Pransky’s non-economic damages.  The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the judgment
entered upon that verdict.
We granted certiorari to consider whether (1) under the test laid down in Eagle-
Picher Indus. v. Balbos, 326 Md. 179, 604 A.2d 445 (1992) (Balbos), sufficient evidence was
presented to show that Ms. Pransky’s exposure to petitioner’s product was a substantial
factor in causing her mesothelioma, and (2) if so, sufficient evidence was presented to show
that her cause of action arose prior to July 1, 1986 – the effective date of a statutory cap on
the amount of non-economic damages that may be awarded in a personal injury action.  We
shall affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals.
Substantial Factor Evidence
That Ms. Pransky had mesothelioma, from which she died at the age of 34 shortly
after trial, is not in dispute.  She attributed the disease to her exposure 25 years earlier to the
asbestos-containing joint compound material, manufactured and distributed by petitioner, that
her father used in the renovation of the basement of their home.  Shortly after the family
moved into the home in 1972, Lisa’s father, a heating and air conditioning contractor,
converted the unfinished basement into a recreation room.  With occasional help from a
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carpenter, he did the work himself, in the evenings and on weekends.  It involved putting up
studs along the walls and ceiling, nailing drywall to the studs, taping the seams, applying
petitioner’s compound to the tape, and sanding the compound to get a smooth seam.  He also
applied the compound to the ceiling to create a stippled effect.
Lisa did not use the compound itself – she was only eight years old when the work
was done.  She was frequently in the basement while her father was working, however, either
watching him or helping her mother with the laundry.  Evidence was presented that the
sanding created a lot of dust, that Lisa was exposed to that dust when she was in the
basement, and that the dust was picked up by the ventilation system and spread throughout
the house.  Following completion of the work, Lisa played in the basement and was further
exposed to dust occasionally emanating from the compound on the ceiling for about another
10 years, until she left the home to go to college.
These basic facts were not in substantial dispute.  The issue was whether they sufficed
to show that Lisa’s mesothelioma was caused by that exposure.  Petitioner produced a great
deal of medical evidence to the effect that Lisa’s mesothelioma was not asbestos-related at
all and that, if it was, it emanated from the unusually high ambient levels of asbestos in her
neighborhood, rather than from her limited exposure to petitioner’s joint compound.  That
evidence, if credited by the jury, would have been more than sufficient to justify a verdict in
favor of petitioner.  The jury apparently was not persuaded by that evidence, however, for
it found otherwise.  On appeal, we must view the evidence, and the inferences reasonably
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deducible from the evidence, in a light most favorable to the Pranskys, looking only to
whether, viewed in that manner, it was legally sufficient to create a triable issue.  See
Houston v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 346 Md. 503, 521, 697 A.2d 851, 859 (1997) (observing that
the standard for appellate review is whether there is “any legally relevant and competent
evidence, however slight, from which a rational mind could infer a fact in issue, ...”); Impala
Platinum Ltd. v. Impala Sales, Inc., 283 Md. 296, 328, 389 A.2d 887, 906 (1978) (same);
Owens-Corning v. Walatka,125 Md. App. 313, 342, 725 A.2d 579, 593 (1999) (same).
Because Lisa did not handle the joint compound herself, she is to be regarded as a
“bystander.”  We dealt with the issue of causation, with respect to a bystander, in Balbos.
The plaintiffs there, Balbos and Knuckles, both worked in a shipyard during World War II.
Although they did not handle asbestos products directly, they each worked in the engine
rooms of ships – large but confined areas – where they were exposed to “great quantities”
of Eagle-Picher’s asbestos products.  Balbos, supra, 326 Md. at 213, 604 A.2d at 461.  We
concluded that the evidence of that exposure sufficed to establish causation with respect to
Eagle-Picher.
One of the plaintiffs, Knuckles, also asserted liability against another defendant,
Porter-Hayden, based on evidence that it sold asbestos products that were used in other parts
of the shipyard.  Knuckles sought to connect his mesothelioma to the Porter-Hayden product
under the “fiber drift theory,” which assumes that asbestos fibers may become airborne or
re-entrained and thus be carried from their source to other areas, and that, as a result, anyone
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present in the facility where the product exists is entitled to have the jury determine causation
with respect to that product.  Id. at 216-17, 604 A.2d at 463.  We rejected that theory as so
attenuating causation-in-fact as to be “inconsistent with the requirement of Maryland law that
an actor’s negligence be a substantial factor in causing the injury.”  Id. at 217, 604 A.2d at
463.  The exposure must be more direct; the plaintiff must have been in or very near the
presence of the asbestos-containing product and able to inhale fibers released from that
product.  In that regard, we stated:
“Whether the exposure of any given bystander to any particular
supplier’s product will be legally sufficient to permit a finding
of substantial-factor causation is fact specific to each case.  The
finding involves the interrelationship between the use of a
defendant’s product at the workplace and the activities of the
plaintiff at the workplace.  This requires an understanding of the
physical characteristics of the work place and of the relationship
between the activities of the direct users of the product and the
bystander plaintiff. [citation omitted].  Within that context, the
factors to be evaluated include the nature of the product, the
frequency of its use, the proximity, in distance and in time, of a
plaintiff to the use of a product, and the regularity of the
exposure of that plaintiff to the use of that product. [citations
omitted].  ‘In addition, trial courts must consider the evidence
presented as to medical causation of the plaintiff’s particular
disease.’  Lockwood v. AC & S, Inc., 109 Wash.2d 235, 744 P.2d
605, 613 (1987).”
Id. at 210-11, 604 A.2d at 460.
The Pranskys, though insisting that the evidence they presented satisfies the Balbos
test of frequent, proximate, and regular exposure, contend that the Balbos test has never been
applied and should not apply in a non-occupational setting.  They treat the Balbos test as one
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designed to test the reliability of circumstantial evidence of exposure, in the absence of
direct evidence and contend that it has no relevance when exposure is established by direct
evidence.  We do not agree.  The quoted statement from Balbos came in the context of our
discussion of Balbos’s and Knuckles’s exposures to the Eagle-Picher product in the engine
rooms, and the evidence of those exposures was direct, not circumstantial.  We introduced
that statement with the observation that “[n]either [plaintiff] in the cases before us worked
directly with asbestos products; rather, they were bystanders,” and we then went on to
articulate a test for determining causation with respect to bystanders.  Id. at 210, 604 A.2d
at 460.  The distinction was not between direct and circumstantial evidence, or between
occupational and non-occupational exposure, but between those who actually handled the
product and those who did not but were in the immediate vicinity.  Nor do we see any
legitimate basis for not applying the Balbos standards in any bystander situation.  The need
for reliable proof of causation is the same, whether the alleged exposure is in an occupational
or non-occupational setting.
The jury in this case was instructed in full compliance with the Balbos standards.  The
court made clear that the burden was on the plaintiffs to show that exposure to petitioner’s
product was a substantial causative factor in bringing about Lisa’s injuries and that, in
determining that question, the jury was to consider “[t]he nature of the product, the frequency
of its use, the proximity in distance and time of the plaintiff to the use of the product and the
regularity of the exposure of that plaintiff to . . . the use of a product.”  The issue is only the
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sufficiency of the evidence to sustain liability under that standard; there is no indication that
the jury was mis-instructed on the law.
We have already recounted the fact that Lisa was present in the basement during the
several-month period that her father was working on the project and was exposed to dust
emanating from his sanding of the compound, and that she continued to be exposed to the
compound spread on the ceiling during the next ten years that she lived in the home.
Testimony was presented that the compound contained about three percent chrysotile
asbestos, that the sanding of that product releases significant amounts of asbestos fibers –
more than the permissible exposure limit established by OSHA that was in effect in 1973 –
and that the dust not only remains in the air for a time but gets back into the air when swept
or cleaned off of surfaces upon which it settles.  Medical evidence was presented that
(1) chrysotile asbestos is a carcinogen that causes mesothelioma, (2) mesothelioma may
occur as the result of a brief, low-level, indirect exposure to asbestos, (3) the disease is much
rarer in women than in men because fewer women were occupationally exposed to asbestos,
(4) due to its latency, mesothelioma may constitute a major asbestos-related cancer hazard
when the exposure begins in childhood (as it did with Lisa), and (5) the latency period for
pleural mesothelioma, from first exposure to onset of symptoms, is 20 years or longer, which
is consistent with Lisa’s having been exposed in 1973 and developing symptoms in 1997.
There was also evidence, intended, no doubt, to rebut inferences that petitioner sought to
draw from the fact that there was no evidence of asbestosis or pleural plaques in Lisa’s lungs,
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that it is not necessary for asbestos-related mesothelioma to be accompanied by that disease
or that condition.
This evidence, if credited by the jury, was clearly sufficient to establish that Lisa’s
exposure to the dust emanating from petitioner’s asbestos-containing joint compound was
a substantial factor in causing her mesothelioma and thus presented a triable issue for the jury
to resolve.
Application of the Cap on Non-Economic Damages
The second question presented by petitioner is whether Ms. Pransky presented
sufficient evidence to establish that her cause of action arose prior to July 1, 1986, the
effective date of the statutory limitation on the amount of non-economic damages that can
be awarded in a personal injury action.  See Maryland Code, § 11-108(b)(1) of the Courts and
Judicial Proceedings Article.  We just dealt with this issue in John Crane, Inc. v. Scribner,
___ Md.  __, ___ A.2d ___ (2002).  We held in that case that, in an action for personal injury
founded upon the plaintiff’s exposure to asbestos, where the injury sued upon and established
is a cancer or other disease that develops over time, the cause of action arises, for purposes
of § 11-108(b)(1), when the plaintiff first inhales asbestos fibers that caused cellular changes
leading to the disease.  We held further that, in making that determination, the court may look
initially to when the plaintiff’s last exposure to asbestos occurred and that, if that last
exposure undisputedly was prior to July 1, 1986, it must conclude, as a matter of law, that
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the limitation in § 11-108(b)(1) does not apply.  That clearly was the situation here.  Ms.
Pransky left the home, and thus the exposure, prior to July, 1986.  The trial court’s
conclusion that the statutory cap did not apply was correct.
JUDGMENT OF COURT OF SPECIAL
APPEALS AFFIRMED, WITH COSTS.