Burkhart v. H.J. Heinz Co. (Slip Opinion)

2014 Ohio 3766, 19 N.E.3d 877, 140 Ohio St. 3d 429
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 3, 2014
Docket2013-0580
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 2014 Ohio 3766 (Burkhart v. H.J. Heinz Co. (Slip Opinion)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Burkhart v. H.J. Heinz Co. (Slip Opinion), 2014 Ohio 3766, 19 N.E.3d 877, 140 Ohio St. 3d 429 (Ohio 2014).

Opinions

O’Donnell, J.

{¶ 1} In this appeal, we are asked to clarify whether former testimony given by the claimant in a products liability lawsuit against asbestos manufacturers is admissible in a workers’ compensation lawsuit against the claimant’s employer alleging workplace exposure to asbestos.

{¶ 2} Donald Burkhart worked for H.J. Heinz Company, developed mesothelioma, and subsequently died. He had given deposition testimony in a products-liability action he had filed against various asbestos manufacturers, but he did not sue H.J. Heinz as part of that lawsuit. After he died, his wife, Mary Lou Burkhart, filed a claim against H.J. Heinz seeking workers’ compensation death benefits. She relied on her husband’s deposition in the products liability case to show that H.J. Heinz had injuriously exposed him to asbestos. The Industrial Commission denied her claim, and on appeal, the trial court struck her husband’s former testimony from the record and entered summary judgment for H.J. [430]*430Heinz. The court of appeals reversed the entry of summary judgment and held that Burkhart’s deposition testimony is admissible to prove that H.J. Heinz injuriously exposed him to asbestos, concluding that the manufacturers defending the products liability action were predecessors-in-interest because they shared a similar motive with H.J. Heinz to develop Burkhart’s testimony.

{If 3} Evid.R. 804(B)(1) states that former testimony of a declarant who is not currently available to testify is not excluded as hearsay when the following separate, conjunctive requirements are met: (1) the party against whom the testimony is offered, or, in a civil action or proceeding, a predecessor-in-interest, had an opportunity to examine the declarant in the prior proceeding, and (2) that party had a motive that is similar to the motive that the party would have in the present proceeding to develop the former testimony by direct, cross, or redirect examination.

{¶ 4} In this case, the parties who had an opportunity to examine Burkhart at the prior deposition were not predecessors-in-interest to H.J. Heinz. None of the asbestos manufacturers present at his deposition preceded H.J. Heinz in ownership of its business, its facilities, or the pipe insulation that allegedly caused his exposure to asbestos. Nor did any asbestos manufacturer in the produetsliability litigation have the same or similar motive as H.J. Heinz to develop Burkhart’s deposition testimony; rather, each asbestos manufacturer sought to disprove that Burkhart had been exposed to asbestos that it had produced, and none had an incentive to dispute that he had not been exposed to asbestos at H.J. Heinz.

{¶ 5} Accordingly, Burkhart’s deposition testimony is not admissible in this case pursuant to Evid.R. 804(B)(1), and therefore the judgment of the court of appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings.

Facts and Procedural History

{¶ 6} H.J. Heinz employed Burkhart as a maintenance worker at its ketchup-bottling plant in Bowling Green, Ohio, from 1946 to 1976 and at its Fremont facility from’ 1976 until his retirement in 1986. During his tenure at the Bowling Green plant, he worked in the boiler room, where he was allegedly exposed to pipe insulation containing asbestos.

{¶ 7} Doctors diagnosed him with malignant pleural mesothelioma in November 2005, and as a result, he filed a products liability action against various asbestos manufacturers. Prior to his death on May 23, 2007, he gave a videotaped deposition in that case to perpetuate his testimony. However, H.J. Heinz was not a party to that lawsuit and had no opportunity to cross-examine him at that time.

[431]*431{¶ 8} In March 2009, Burkhart’s wife, Mary Lou Burkhart, filed a workers’ compensation claim for death benefits, asserting that her husband had been exposed to asbestos while working for H.J. Heinz and that he died as a result of an occupational disease. Both the district hearing officer and the staff hearing officer denied her claim, concluding that Mrs. Burkhart failed to prove that workplace exposure to asbestos caused her husband’s death. The Industrial Commission denied review.

{¶ 9} Mrs. Burkhart appealed to the Wood County Common Pleas Court, and H.J. Heinz moved for summary judgment, asserting that she could not prove that it had injuriously exposed her husband to asbestos at work.

{¶ 10} Mrs. Burkhart opposed the motion for summary judgment, attaching the transcripts of the video depositions of her husband in the products-liability action. In particular, she relied on the following segments of his former testimony:

Q All right. Now, in 1946, you said that you went into the boiler room, what did you have to do in the boiler room, what was your job?
A Well, like I said, Heinz never throwed nothing away, and this asbestos stuff was knocked off the pipes, had to put it in a bucket and saved it and we would, in spare time, would beat it to pieces, make a paste out of it and put it back on the pipes.
Q Okay. And would these be the pipes in the boiler room?
A Yes, or anyplace else.
Q Now, when you say this asbestos stuff—
A Well, it was flaky, they called it asbestos, I don’t know what it was.
Q Who is they that called it asbestos?
A Management.
Q When you would pick up this asbestos in the buckets to mix it up and put it on, was that a dusty process?
A Oh, yes.
Q Do you believe that you breathed in that dust?
A Well, if it was dust, I got some of it.

{¶ 11} Mrs. Burkhart also attached invoices for pipe insulation sent to the facility in Bowling Green, interrogatories filed in unrelated litigation in which Owens Corning Fiberglass Corporation admitted that this type of pipe insulation [432]*432contained asbestos, an environmental report indicating that asbestos was present in pipe insulation in the Bowling Green and Fremont facilities, an affidavit from a coworker who expressed a belief that Burkhart had been exposed to asbestos dust in the workplace, Burkhart’s medical records, and expert reports opining that workplace exposure to asbestos caused Burkhart’s mesothelioma.

{¶ 12} The trial court struck Burkhart’s deposition transcripts from the record, concluding that the exception to the hearsay rule for former testimony did not apply because H.J. Heinz, or a predecessor-in-interest, was not involved in the earlier litigation. It also struck the invoices for pipe insulation, the interrogatories, and the environmental report, and it disregarded statements in Burkhart’s medical records and the reports of Mrs. Burkhart’s experts relating to Burkhart’s workplace exposure to asbestos.

{¶ 13} The common pleas court then granted summary judgment in favor of H.J. Heinz, finding that evidence from a coworker that Burkhart had “worked in a dusty boiler room containing pipes he thought might have been covered with asbestos insulation” and testimony from a current H.J.

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Bluebook (online)
2014 Ohio 3766, 19 N.E.3d 877, 140 Ohio St. 3d 429, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/burkhart-v-hj-heinz-co-slip-opinion-ohio-2014.