Opinion ID: 1400724
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Weyerhaeuser's Business Operations

Text: Weyerhaeuser is an international paper company with its principal place of business in the state of Washington. It is involved in numerous ventures, including growing and managing forests, producing paper and wood, and providing certain financial services. Among its many business activities, Weyerhaeuser operates plants that produce cardboard boxes from corrugated cardboard sheets. FFGs are used in the manufacture of such boxes. In the 1980s, most of Weyerhaeuser's 65 box plants in the United States and Europe used two or three FFGs. As of 2005, the company employed about 197 such machines at its 79 U.S. plants. The FFG at issue in this case was sold used in 1986 by Weyerhaeuser's Investment Recovery Business (IRB), the division through which the company generally disposes of its obsolete or otherwise unneeded equipment. According to the IRB's 1983 Policy and Procedure Manual, the purpose of the IRB is to manage the orderly disposition of idle facilities, equipment, material and supplies, which are no longer economically useful to Weyerhaeuser Company in their present form or location. The manual provides that the IRB's objectives include, among other things, maintaining cash flows by providing for the timely disposal of surplus assets, recovering the maximum value from surplus assets, and increasing the margins on third-party sales by offering refurbished equipment and engaging in full-time sales efforts. The surplus assets sold by the IRB have included Flexo machines such as the FFG, as well as other equipment from Weyerhaeuser's box plants, including conveyors, drives, sheeters, and trucks and automobiles. The 1983 IRB manual indicates that the IRB markets Weyerhaeuser's used equipment by distributing quarterly catalogs, advertising in trade journals, telemarketing, and conducting market research on potential buyers and dealers of used equipment. Although the parties disagree on the precise amount, it is common ground that the IRB grossed somewhere between $7.5 and $8.5 million in 1986, the year Weyerhaeuser sold the FFG that eventually injured Jaramillo. This accounted for approximately 0. 15 percent of Weyerhaeuser's net sales of about $5.65 billion that year. The IRB had around 15 employees at that time and maintained three facilities where surplus equipment was awaiting sale.