Court Opinion

ID: 9406268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-30 16:04:39.488897+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:28.351918
License: Public Domain

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

JEFFREY SAUNDERS,           )
                            )
          Plaintiff,        )
                            )                     Case No.:N21C-09-137 ASB
     v.                     )
                            )
ATLANTIC PLANT MAINTENANCE, )
                            )
          Defendants.       )

                             Submitted: June 16, 2023
                              Decided: June 29, 2023

                           OPINION AND ORDER

          On Plaintiffs’ Rule 59(e) Motion for Reargument and/or
      Reconsideration of the Decision on Motion for Summary Judgment

                                    DENIED

Raeann Warner, Esquire, Jacobs & Crumplar, P.A., Delaware, Attorney for Plaintiff.

Allison Texter, Swart, Campbell, LLC., Attorney for Defendant

Jones, J.
      Jeffery Saunders has filed an action against a number of Defendants alleging

that he was exposed to asbestos containing products and as a result of that exposure

has sustained injuries. One of the Defendants sued is Atlantic Plant Management

(“APM”) who moved for summary judgment on the grounds that Mr. Saunders claim

is barred by the exclusivity provision of the Delaware workman’s compensation

statute. In a June 6, 2023 oral ruling, this Court granted APM’s motion, finding that

Delaware law applied to plaintiff’s claim and plaintiff’s claim was barred by the

exclusive remedy provision of the Delaware Workman’s compensation statute. This

Motion for Reargument filed by the plaintiff follows.

       Mr. Saunders worked out of the Delaware Carpenters Millwright Union for

22 years beginning in 1996. One of the places that Mr. Saunders worked from this

Union was at the Eddystone powerhouse in Eddystone, Pennsylvania. He worked at

Eddystone in 2001, 2009, and 2010. While he worked at Eddystone his employer

was APM.

      APM maintains that Mr. Saunders claims are governed by Delaware law and

therefore, under the Exclusivity provision of the Delaware Workman’s

compensation statute, his claims are barred. Saunders maintains that the claims

against APM are governed by Pennsylvania law, and under Pennsylvania law his

claims are not barred by that state’s workman’s compensation statute. If Mr.

Saunders’ claims are controlled by Delaware law than his claims against APM are

barred. Similarly if his claims are governed by Pennsylvania law, then his claims are

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not barred by the exclusivity remedy provision of the Pennsylvania workman’s

compensation statute based on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Tooey

v. AK Steel Corp.1

           Delaware’s traditional approach to determining the law applicable to an

asbestos case where exposure occurred in multiple jurisdictions is to determine

where the greatest exposure occurred. That jurisdiction’s law will control. If that is

not feasible, or if the record is unclear, then the court will apply the law of the state

in which the disease first manifested itself. If that is too unclear, in the alternative

where the disease was diagnosed has the most significant relationship.2 In this case,

the parties agree that if the Petroski test controls, then Delaware law applies. That

is undoubtedly because Plaintiff’s discovery responses, work history, and testimony

indicate that his claimed employment from 1983 to 2007 is almost exclusively in

Delaware. His household exposure is in Delaware and his diagnosis and treatment

has been in Delaware. Under the restatement, Delaware has the most significant

relationship to this case.

           Plaintiff urges this Court not to apply the Petroski test to the instant dispute,

but to apply the doctrine of Depecage. Depecage is the concept that laws of different

states may be applied to different portions of a case. In a sense, Depecage has been

used in asbestos cases where part of a person’s exposure is governed by Maritime

1
    81 A.3d 851 (2013).
2
    James Petroski N10C-11-39 (6/23/12 Parkins).
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law and part by state law. The maritime claims are based on maritime law and the

land-based claims are based on state law which is determined by the Petroski test.

The Court has consistently applied the Petroski test. The Court is not willing to

depart from that test where the issue is what state law should apply to land exposure.3

         Plaintiff next maintains that DelPizzo v. Agilent Technologies4 compels a

conclusion that Pennsylvania law applies to this case. Delpizzo involved a worker

who had asbestos exposure both in Delaware and out of state. The question in

Delpizzo was which workman’s compensation carrier was on the risk in light of

Delaware’s well settled last injurious exposure rule. The Delpizzo court ruled that

given the last injurious exposure rule and the joint purposes of the workman’s

compensation exclusivity provision to provide benefits to workers promptly and to

make it clear what risk employers faced from workers injuries that the last Delaware

carrier on the risk would be responsible for all workman’s compensation claims,

even those out of state. In this case, Mr. Saunders had available to him workman’s

compensation benefits for all of his exposure given the invisible nature of his injuries

that exposure, included his exposure at AMP. Given that he had workman’s

compensation benefits available to him for all of his exposure, in my view the

workman’s compensation bar would apply to all employment including the out of

state employment. To rule otherwise would frustrate the dual purposes of the act.

3
  Nothing in this decision today should be interpreted to mean that the Court will not apply two separate sets of laws
to exposure where some of that exposure is land based and some is based on maritime law.
4
  2004 WL 2827906, (Del. Super., 2004).
                                                              4
         Against this background, I now turn to Plaintiff’s Motion for Reargument.

This Court’s standard for considering Motions for Reargument is well settled.

The Court will only grant reargument when it has overlooked controlling

precedent or legal principles, or misapprehend the law or facts in a way that

would have changed the outcome of the underlying decision.5 Reargument is not

an opportunity for a party to revisit arguments already decided by the Court.6

         Plaintiff, in his Motion for Reargument again relies on DelPizzo v. Agilent

Technologies and maintains that the Court has misconstrued the holding in

Delpizzo. The Court is satisfied that upon further review it has not misapplied

the holding in Delpizzo. Plaintiff next maintains that the Court misconstrued the

facts in its decision regarding the existence of crossclaims and their impact on

the analysis. In the oral ruing the Court noted that the existence of crossclaims

and issues of apportionment of fault involving settled parties continued to have

an impact on the choice of law question. The Court ruled that the claims against

those entities that are on the verdict sheet for apportionment purposes claims

would be controlled by Delaware law since the parties had agreed to that in an

earlier filing in this case.7 Plaintiff maintains that the only defendant left is APM

5
  See Peters ex rel. Peters v. Texas Instruments, Inc., 2012 WL 1622396, at *1 (Del. Super. May 7, 2012), aff’d, 58
A.3d 414 (Del. 2013), as revised (Jan. 9, 2013).
6
  See id.
7
  The procedure in asbestos cases in this jurisdiction is for an early determination to be made on the law that governs
the case. The reason for this procedure is for the parties to know, prior to the initiation of discovery, the applicable
law so that both the parties, and the court can apply it as the case proceeds. In this case that procedure was followed
and an Order was entered indicating that Delaware law controls. At least one prior judge of this Court has indicated
in a similar circumstance that once the determination of law is made it should not be changed. In Re: Asbestos
Litigation 022011DB Trial Group, Del. Super., (Oct. 21, 2010). While this judicial officer will not follow that
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and therefore there will be no cross claim issue. The fact that APM is the only

defendant left does not mean that there cannot be apportionment against other

parties if a case can be proven against the other parties.

         In the motion for argument plaintiff has cited to the Court for the first time

the decision in In Re: Asbestos: Allan Kapp,8 In Kapp, the plaintiff had extensive

occupational exposure to asbestos in Delaware and extensive nonoccupational

exposure in Maryland. This Court’s Master allowed Maryland law to apply to

the nonoccupational exposure and Delaware law to the occupational exposure at

the summary judgment stage. In his decision he concluded that applying the law

of two jurisdictions was appropriate because only two jurisdictions were

involved, confusion would not be caused at the summary judgment stage and

because the plaintiff had a prior asbestos case where Delaware law applied to the

occupational exposure it should apply in the instant case. The Court is not

persuaded that Kapp should control over Petroski. Petroski involves an analysis

that takes into account all factors including trial issues and Kapp does not.

Moreover, Kapp involved a plaintiff who had had a prior asbestos claim where it

was determined that Delaware law would apply. I decline to follow the Kapp

decision and will continue to follow Petroski. The Petroski analysis leads to a

blanket rule, in only the rare case would, in this judge’s mind, justify a departure from enforcing a prior order
determining the law to be applied in a given case where the application comes at the summary judgment stage.
8
  C.A.12C-02-265.
                                                              6
conclusion that Delaware is the law applicable to this case and as such, plaintiff’s

claim is barred by Delaware’s exclusivity provision.

      For the above reasons, Defendant’s Motion for Reargument is DENIED.

      IT IS SO ORDERED.

                                                       /s/ Francis J. Jones, Jr.
                                                     Francis J. Jones, Jr., Judge

cc:   Original to Prothonotary

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