Hart v. Keenan Properties, Inc.

CMBG3’s California team was hired by a company involved in the Alameda County asbestos litigation to appeal a jury award in favor of a plaintiff for $1.6 million in damages. The trial involved a 63-year old laborer who alleged that he installed thousands of feet of asbestos-cement pipe on a six month job in northern California between 1976 and 1977. The asbestos-cement pipe was allegedly supplied by the company that hired Joe Gunter and Christine Calareso to appeal the jury verdict to the California Appellate Court. The only evidence that plaintiff produced to support his claim that our client supplied the asbestos-cement pipe was testimony from the plaintiff’s foreman, who claimed to remember signing invoices 40 years ago with our client’s name on the documents. None of the alleged invoices were ever produced – nevertheless, over objections, the trial court allowed the testimony to be presented.

At oral argument before the Appellate Court, Joe argued that the evidence produced against our client was inadmissible hearsay – an extremely difficult argument to make given that finding in CMBG3’s favor would require the Appellate Court to overturn not only the trial judge’s rulings on the issue, but also the conclusions of the jury during the trial. The Appellate Court agreed, finding that the trial judge should have excluded the testimony of the foreman since the documents were not available. The 16 page ruling in favor of our client gave the company a major victory, as it reversed the damages awarded by the jury at the trial. The Appellate Court case was argued before the First Appellate Division, Division Five, Docket Number A152692.

This case gained national notoriety due to the difficulty of the argument, and received media attention, notably from the San Francisco Chronicle.