Court Opinion

ID: 9517934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:37:26.666378+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:08.795982
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Judge,
dissenting.
While I join the Majority in affirming the order of the trial court severing the Owens-Illinois Glass Company’s cross-claims, I cannot join the analysis of the majority on its disposition of the remaining issues. Not only do I reject the retroactive application of Giffear v. Johns-Manville Corp., 429 Pa.Super. 327, 632 A.2d 880 (1993), to the facts of this case, my review of this record suggests the determination of the Majority that Giffear is dispositive of this particular case is misplaced.
James Didio’s medical expert testified that Didio suffered from both progressive pleural thickening and asbestosis. N.T. 9/19/91, at 13-20; R. 559a-566a. While Giffear holds that asymptomatic pleural thickening is not compensable as a matter of law, 429 Pa.Super. at 335, 632 A.2d at 884, Giffear also determines that “if the asymptomatic pleural thickening would lead to a clear asbestos-related injury (asbestosis, lung cancer or mesothelioma), the plaintiff could then bring an action at that time.” Id. at 337-38, 632 A.2d at 886 (emphasis added). Giffear would allow a plaintiff with asbestosis to recover since asbestosis is “a clear asbestos-related injury.” Since Giffear would allow recovery for asbestosis, and medical testimony established that James Didio suffered from asbestosis, N.T., 9/19/91 at 15, 53-55, I am constrained to conclude that Giffear is not dispositive of this case on these facts.
Fibreboard also contends that Didio’s “abject failure to present evidence any of his physical pain and suffering” requires this Court to grant judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial. Appellant’s Brief at 21-22. The authorities cited by Fibreboard fail to support this assertion. In fact, the issue in Griffin v. Tedesco, 355 Pa.Super. 475, 513 A.2d 1020 (1986), the first case cited by Fibreboard, was *206whether the trial court’s discovery sanction, which precluded appellant from introducing any testimony at trial, was improper. Id. at 480, 513 A.2d at 1023. This is without merit.
Fibreboard further maintains that there was no testimony that Didio experienced pain or suffering as a result of his asbestos exposure. Yet the medical evidence indicated that, given his age, Didio had an alarming severity of disease, which had already progressed extensively, and might be expected to worsen in the future; Didio “may ultimately become a pulmonary cripple” since there is no possibility of treatment, reversal or cure. N.T., 9/19/93 at 19-20, 25-29; R. 565a-566a, 571a-575a. James Didio testified that he suffers great anxiety as a result of his diagnosis and described his initial reaction to the diagnosis of his conditions as devastation. N.T. 9/20/91 at 94; R. 205a. He worries constantly about his health and the future of his family; he has altered his activities so that he is now sedentary; he suffers from shortness of breath upon exertion under humid weather conditions; his personality has also changed in that now he is withdrawn, constantly frightened that his condition will become aggravated. N.T. 9/20/91, at 97-100; R. 208-212a. This evidence when believed and accepted by a trier of fact is proof of pain and suffering. See Boggavarapu v. Ponist, 518 Pa. 162, 168, 542 A.2d 516, 519 (1988). “[V]ictims indeed must be compensated for all they lose and all that they suffer from the tort of another.” Id. at 167, 542 A.2d at 518. Our Supreme Court has determined that:
[T]here are injuries to which human experience teaches there is accompanying pain. Those injuries are obvious in the most ordinary sense: the broken bone, the stretched muscle, twist of the skeletal system, injury to a nerve, organ or their function, and all the consequences of any injury traceable by medical science and common experience as sources of pain and suffering. Pain, of varying degree, may indeed follow small injury and be greater in its consequence than the initial blow. It may aggravate existing defects of the person, exploding latent diseases or precipitate, into present pain, what otherwise might have passed or been *207long delayed, absent the immediate injury. Pain may be subjective, and if believed, is compensable. If the pain, however, has no known medical source and is subjective to the person, the triers of fact must believe and accept that [the pain] ... exists.
Id. at 167, 542 A.2d at 518 (citations omitted).
Here the jury exercised its prerogative to believe all, some or none of the evidence. My review of this record reveals that the trial court gave a full and accurate instruction to the jury on the measure of damages. Indeed, Fibreboard raises no claim to the contrary. My review of this record also convinces me that the jury followed the instruction of the trial court on the measure of damages. I would hold that this matter should end with the verdict of the jury, once the trial court denied Fibreboard’s post-trial motions.
Moreover, I continue to find it unsettling that the Majority would retroactively apply this Court’s decision in Giffear v. Johns-Manville Corp., supra, to this asbestos case. In Murray v. Philadelphia Asbestos Corp. et al., 433 Pa.Super. 206, 220, 640 A.2d 446, 453, dissent by Johnson, J., I set forth my concern that this Court has not actually considered whether Giffear should apply retroactively or prospectively. Again, I am troubled that the Majority applies Giffear to Keene’s motion for remittitur retroactively. This issue has not been directly raised before our Court; and our Court has not had the benefit of reasoned argument by the parties on whom the burden of these decisions would fall.
Again, I am unable to deem a request for remittitur sufficient to preserve the question of whether it is proper to award damages for even an asymptomatic condition pursuant to Giffear. I fail to see that a request for remittitur has the particularity or precision to adequately preserve this issue. A request for remittitur alone is not sufficient to preserve this issue. Hence, I cannot agree that our Court should allow Giffear to be applied retroactively, absent considered and reasoned reflection. Given the volume of these cases through*208out the Commonwealth, I find this adoption of retroactivity regrettable.
Accordingly, while I join the Majority in affirming the trial court’s severance of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company’s cross-claims, I dissent from the Majority on the remaining issues.