Opinion ID: 2280027
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Substantial Evidence Supported the Trial Court's Ruling

Text: This Court concludes that there was substantial evidence to support the trial court's ruling: the evidence introduced at trial established that Dexter was exposed to asbestos manufactured by or used on the premises of other companies, that these exposures also caused his lung cancer, and that the companies knew or should have known about the dangers and failed to warn Dexter. Much of the evidence that supported the jury's finding of liability against CertainTeed and Garlock (e.g., that of causation) was just as applicable to the empty-chair defendants. In addition to that evidence, other evidence related specifically to the empty-chair defendants was also introduced. In fact, some of that evidence was Dexter's own, or at least his own discovery responses. No doubt, the trial court was especially troubled by the lack of apportionment against empty-chair defendants who, over the course of Dexter's forty-year career, caused him to have much more exposure than did CertainTeed in the week or so in which he was exposed to its products. Though the Justices of this Court might have reviewed the evidence differently if they were presiding at trial, as members of an appellate court, we cannot approach the evidence in such a way. The Court of Appeals would have required specific and exact evidence of the duration and intensity of exposure from each and every defendant, and that exposure's specific contribution to Dexter's injury. Finding a lack of such specific evidence, the Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court clearly erred. But this Court cannot say that such precise evidencepresumably consisting of comprehensive and exact descriptions of a plaintiffs exposure from each defendant and expert extrapolation of that exposure to some percentage of causationis necessary for a trial court to conclude that the jury's verdict was manifestly against the evidence or the product of passion and prejudice. A trial court needs only substantial evidence, not perfect or absolutely compelling evidence, to support its decision. So long as the trial court's decision was supported by substantial evidence and was not an abuse of discretion, an appellate court must defer to it and affirm the decision. As discussed above, there was ample evidence from which the trial court could conclude that it was unreasonable for the jury to fail to apportion any fault to empty-chair defendants. As such, the trial court's finding of fact that the jury's failure to apportion fault was manifestly unsupported by the evidence and manifestly a product of jury passion and prejudice was not clearly erroneous. Additionally, such a finding supports a decision to grant a new trial, and we therefore cannot say that the trial court's decision to do so was an abuse of discretion under the standard articulated above. Finally, before concluding, this Court must also address the Court of Appeals' general contention at the end of its opinion that apportionment was improper because there was no proof of distinct harms caused by the empty-chair defendants and there was no reasonable basis for determining the contribution of each to Dexter's single harm (his cancer). To support this conclusion, the court cited the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 433A (1965), and its prior finding of a complete lack of proof as to the type, length or depth of asbestos exposure by any other defendant. To some extent, this Court has rejected the approach in Section 433A, stating that when contribution from multiple causes cannot be readily determined, an instruction on comparative fault is appropriate. See Owens Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Parrish, 58 S.W.3d 467, 479 (Ky. 2001). Though it is unclear whether this aspect of Parrish is sound, since Section 433A purports to lay out the grounds when a comparative fault instruction would be appropriate, this issue is reserved for review of the second trial because the only issue before this Court is whether trial court erred in granting a new trial, not whether an apportionment instruction is appropriate in the first place. Because of the deference afforded a new-trial decision, an appellate court does not have to review the evidence with such rigorscrutinizing the evidence with mathematical meticulousness and parsing out the exact percentages of fault it might establishas suggested by the Court of Appeals. As discussed above, evidence of all the necessary elements of liability as to at least some of the empty-chair defendants was introduced at trial. The trial court observed the parties, counsel, witnesses and jury first hand and was, therefore, in the best position to evaluate what happened. The trial court was not clearly erroneous and did not abuse its discretion in granting a new trial.