Turley v. Familian Corp.

227 Cal. Rptr. 3d 321, 18 Cal. App. 5th 969
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal, 5th District
DecidedDecember 22, 2017
DocketA149752
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 227 Cal. Rptr. 3d 321 (Turley v. Familian Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal, 5th District primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Turley v. Familian Corp., 227 Cal. Rptr. 3d 321, 18 Cal. App. 5th 969 (Cal. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

Richman, J.

*971Plaintiffs husband and wife sued for asbestos-related injury against numerous defendants, including defendant Familian Corporation. Familian moved for summary judgment on the basis that plaintiffs could not show exposure to asbestos in a Familian-related product. Plaintiffs' opposition included a declaration from a third party witness who had not been deposed, who testified in detail to such exposure. The trial court then continued the motion, allowed the witness to be deposed, and Familian then used portions of the deposition in support of its reply. The trial court thereafter concluded that the deposition testimony "conclusively negates" the witness's declaration testimony as to exposure; refused to consider it under the principle set forth in D'Amico v. Board of Medical Examiners (1974) 11 Cal.3d 1, 112 Cal.Rptr. 786, 520 P.2d 10 ( D'Amico ); and granted summary judgment. We conclude the trial court erred, and we reverse.

BACKGROUND

The Complaint and the Discovery

Plaintiffs Keith Turley (Turley) and his wife Joy Ann Turley (when referred to collectively, plaintiffs or the Turleys) filed a complaint on March 13, 2015 against some 50 defendants. The complaint alleged six causes of action, on the fundamental basis that Turley has asbestos-related disease caused by exposure to asbestos-containing products, including valve gaskets, during his 36-year employment at Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E).

Familian was not named in the original complaint, but was served as a Doe defendant, and on July 15, 2015 filed its answer.

*972Both plaintiffs and Familian accuse the other of various sharp discovery practices.1

*323We will not wade in on this, as we do not deem it germane to the issue before us, which is whether the summary judgment was proper.

As to the discovery that did occur pertinent to the issue here, it began with Familian serving " 'state all facts' " interrogatories on plaintiffs. Plaintiffs' response stated that Turley was exposed to asbestos-containing pipe products supplied by Familian, including "asbestos cement transite pipe, pipe collars, gaskets, elbows, pipe-repair products and other asbestos products."

As to the locations where Familian supplied such products, plaintiffs identified the Kettleman City compressor plant in Avenal, pipelines in Burney, and pipelines in Bakersfield. Their response did not identify the Willows district compressor station.

As to the documents supporting their position, the Turleys referred to depositions and other documents, some 11,000 pages in all, including the following: (1) Turley's medical records; (2) eight depositions, of Turley, Mrs. Turley, Keith Appleton, Glen Moon, Gary Mason, Paul Scott, Gail Reed, and Harvey Suddy; (3) unidentified business records; (4) Familian's responses to general order standard interrogatories; (5) a list of depositions by Familian's former and/or present corporate witnesses in other cases involving Familian; (6) contents of Familian's job files, invoices, supply logs, transfer transactions and sales receipts; and (7) a list of various medical and scientific articles.

Asked to identify witnesses with knowledge of Turley's claimed exposure to products " 'manufactured/supplied' " by Familian, plaintiffs named eight people: themselves, Mason, Appleton, Moon, Suddy, Reed, and Scott.2

At a case management conference in November, 2015, the case was set for trial for September 6, 2016.

Against that background, Familian filed the motion leading to the appeal here.

*973The Motion for Summary Judgment

On June 24, 2016, Familian filed a motion for summary judgment or, in the alternative, summary adjudication. It was set for hearing on August 26, and thus plaintiffs' opposition was due on August 12. The essential argument as to all causes of action was that plaintiffs could not establish that Turley was exposed to asbestos from any Familian-related product or that Familian caused his alleged asbestos-related disease. As Familian itself describes it: "In its motion, Familian used deposition testimony to establish that [plaintiffs] have no evidence that Turley was exposed to asbestos in a product manufactured, supplied, sold, or distributed by Familian. Familian also used [plaintiffs'] factually devoid discovery responses to establish that [plaintiffs] cannot support their allegations of exposure and cannot obtain such information."

To put it otherwise, Familian's motion was not based on affirmative evidence. For example, there was no declaration from any Familian representative or person most knowledgeable testifying that Familian did not sell asbestos-containing gaskets. And no testimony that even if it did, it never sold any such materials to PG&E during the time that Turley worked there, *324or it did not supply such materials to the district where Turley worked. As the Turleys describe it, "all that Familian did was submit plaintiffs' discovery responses and snippets from the depositions of only some, but not all , of the witnesses identified in plaintiffs' discovery responses. In fact, although the plaintiffs' interrogatory responses identified defendants' own persons most qualified and corporate representatives, no deposition transcripts of those identified witnesses were attached to the motion to show that Familian did not supply those materials."

A week after it filed its motion, Familian moved to vacate or continue the September 6 trial date, based on the claim that plaintiffs had obstructed Familian's effort to take the deposition of Scott. The motion was heard on July 29, at which the court ordered the parties to meet and confer and to produce Scott for deposition by August 19.3 This, of course, was after the August 12 due date of plaintiffs' opposition to the motion.

Plaintiffs filed their opposition on August 12, which among other things included copies of their supplemental responses to interrogatories. Most pertinent to the issue here, plaintiffs' opposition included the declaration of Scott, in which he testified in pertinent part that he was an apprentice *974mechanic and warehouseman who worked with Turley for some six years, from 1981-1987; that he was the person responsible for ordering and distributing materials in the Willows district; and that on "many occasions" the replacement gaskets that Turley was exposed to while working in the Willows district for PG&E in the 1980's were asbestos-containing-and supplied by Familian.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
227 Cal. Rptr. 3d 321, 18 Cal. App. 5th 969, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/turley-v-familian-corp-calctapp5d-2017.