May v. Air & Liquid Sys. Corp.

• Decision Date: 03 October 2014
• Docket Number: No. 2670, Sept. Term, 2012.,2670, Sept. Term, 2012.
• Parties: Philip Royce MAY, et al. v. AIR & LIQUID SYSTEMS CORPORATION etc. et al.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

219 Md.App. 424

100 A.3d 1284

Philip Royce MAY, et al.

v.AIR & LIQUID SYSTEMS CORPORATION etc. et al.

No. 2670, Sept. Term, 2012.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Oct. 3, 2014.

Jonathan Ruckdeschel (Z. Stephen Horvat, Jaqueline G. Badders, Ruckdeschel Firm, LLC, Ellicott City, MD, Jeffrey A. O'Connell, Christopher Norris, Nemeroff Law Firm, Dallas, TX), on the brief, for Appellant.

F. Ford Loker (Miles & Stockbridge, PC, Baltimore, MD), Laurie J. Hepler (Carroll Burdick & McDonough, LLP, Thomas M. Goss, Goodell, Devries, Leech & Dann, LLP, Baltimore, MD, Joel Newport, Moore & Jackson, LLC, Towson, MD), on the briefs, for Appellee.

Panel: WOODWARD, KEHOE, and ARTHUR, JJ.

Opinion

ARTHUR, J.

In Ford Motor Co. v. Wood, 119 Md.App. 1, 34, 703 A.2d 1315, cert. denied, 349 Md. 494, 709 A.2d 139 (1998), this Court held that an automobile manufacturer could not be held liable in tort for failing to warn of the latent dangers of asbestos-containing replacement parts that it neither manufactured nor placed into the stream of commerce. In this case, we reaffirm that decision and, in accordance with a number of out-of-state cases that have followed in its wake, hold that the manufacturers of steam pumps in Navy ships cannot be held liable for failing to warn of the dangers of asbestos-containing replacement parts (gaskets and packing) that they neither manufactured nor placed into the stream of commerce.

Question Presented

Appellants present two questions for our review, which we rephrase and combine below into one question:

Did the trial court err in granting summary judgment as to whether defendants had a duty to warn of the hazards associated with replacement parts for the products they sold?¹

For the reasons that follow, we answer no and affirm the judgment of the circuit court.

Factual and Procedural History

Plaintiff Philip Royce May served on active duty in the United States Navy for 20 years, from 1956 until 1976. For almost all of those 20 years, Mr. May worked as a machinist mate in one of the several engine rooms of a naval vessel. As a machinist mate, Mr. May's duties included replacing asbestos gaskets and “packing” in the pumps that pumped superheated steam through the ship's steam-propulsion system.²

Mr. May's work exposed him to airborne asbestos fibers. When removing gaskets, Mr. May would have to use a hand-held scraper, a wire brush, or a pneumatic brush, which generated respirable dust. When fabricating a new gasket for installation, Mr. May would have to shape it into the proper size, which also generated respirable dust. When removing packing, Mr. May would have to get within two inches of a valve to blow out the last pieces of packing, which generated respirable dust as well.

Defendants Air & Liquid Systems Corp., Warren Pumps LLC, and IMO Industries, Inc., manufactured the steam pumps whose gaskets and packing Mr. May would replace. In accordance with the Navy's specifications, the defendants' pumps contained asbestos gaskets and packing when the defendants first delivered them to the Navy.

During Mr. May's career, he served on a total of seven ships, all of which were built and launched at least five years before his service on them began. Indeed, six of the seven were built and launched during World War II, more than a decade before Mr. May joined the Navy. As Mr. May testified in his deposition, he never served on the maiden voyage of any navy vessel.

Because Mr. May never served on a maiden voyage, he was never the first mechanic to perform maintenance on any of those pumps and to replace the original gaskets or packing in them. In fact, the pumps in question had been serviced on many occasions before he worked on any of them. Thus, Mr. May was not exposed to any asbestos-containing products that had been made or sold by any of the defendant-manufacturers. Instead, he was exposed to asbestos-containing replacement parts that were made and sold by entities other than the defendant-manufacturers.

The defendant-manufacturers neither required nor recommended that any particular replacement part be used. In other words, the defendants neither required nor recommended the use of their own products as replacement parts, nor did they require or recommend the use of asbestos-containing replacement parts. In fact, when Mr. May needed a replacement part, he obtained it by referring to a Navy stock number. He did not request or obtain a specific part that was manufactured by a specific manufacturer.

Finally, the defendant-manufacturers did not instruct or advise Mr. May about how to make and change gaskets (in, for example, their product manuals). While Mr. May consulted “instruction books from the manufacturer” (it was not clear whose), he did so only to learn how much clearance was required and how thick the gasket should be.³

In January 2012, Mr. May learned that he was suffering from malignant pleural mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer that is commonly caused by asbestos exposure. On March 2, 2012, he and his wife filed suit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, naming numerous defendants, including the manufacturers of the steam pumps on the ships on which he served.⁴

At the close of discovery, those manufacturers moved for summary judgment on the ground that, as a matter of Maryland law, they had no duty to warn of the dangers of the asbestos-containing replacement parts that they neither manufactured nor placed into the stream of commerce. The circuit court granted the motions. After the denial of their motions for reconsideration, the Mays noted a timely appeal.

Standard of Review

For motions for summary judgment, the applicable legal standards are well known:

under Rule 2–501(f), “a court shall enter judgment in favor of or against the moving party if the motion and response show that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the party in whose favor judgment is entered is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”

“[T]he summary judgment standard is akin to that of a directed verdict, i.e., whether a fair-minded jury could return a verdict for the plaintiff on the evidence presented.” Seaboard Sur. Co. v. Richard F. Kline, Inc., 91 Md.App. 236, 244, 603 A.2d 1357 (1992) ; accord Sierra Club v. Dominion Cove Point LNG, L.P., 216 Md.App. 322, 330, 86 A.3d 82, cert. denied, 438 Md. 741, 93 A.3d 289 (2014). Thus, a court must view the facts, and all reasonable inferences that may be drawn from them, in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Dobkin v. Univ. of Baltimore Sch. of Law, 210 Md.App. 580, 590–91, 63 A.3d 692 (2013). Nonetheless, when a movant has carried its burden of demonstrating sufficient grounds for summary judgment, “ ‘the party opposing summary judgment must do more than simply show there is some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts.’ ” Hamilton v. Dackman,

213 Md.App. 589, 606, 75 A.3d 327 (2013) (quoting Seaboard Sur. Co., 91 Md.App. at 244, 603 A.2d 1357 ).

In reviewing the grant of a motion for summary judgment, appellate courts focus on whether the circuit court's grant of the motion was legally correct. Sierra Club, 216 Md.App. at 330, 86 A.3d 82 (citing Laing v. Volkswagen of Am., Inc., 180 Md.App. 136, 152–53, 949 A.2d 26 (2008) ). Thus, we conduct a plenary, de novo review of the grant of summary judgment. See, e.g., Reiner v. Ehrlich, 212 Md.App. 142, 151, 66 A.3d 1132, cert. denied, 433 Md. 514, 72 A.3d 173 (2013) ; Dobkin, 210 Md.App. at 590–91, 63 A.3d 692.

Discussion

A. Wood Is Dispositive of the Mays' Claims

This case is governed by the decision Ford Motor Co. v. Wood, 119 Md.App. 1, 703 A.2d 1315, cert. denied, 349 Md. 494, 709 A.2d 139 (1998).⁵

In Wood, Mrs. Wood claimed that her late husband had contracted mesothelioma and died because he had been exposed to asbestos fibers while working in a garage where workers repaired and replaced the brakes and clutches on older-model Ford trucks. Id. at 10, 30, 703 A.2d 1315. Although she had prevailed at trial, this Court held that the circuit court erred in denying Ford's motion for judgment, because Mrs. Wood “did not present sufficient evidence that Mr. Wood was exposed to Ford's brake and clutch products with the requisite degree of frequency, proximity or regularity.” Id. at 30, 703 A.2d 1315. In reaching its decision, the Wood Court reasoned that the trucks “did not contain their original brake and clutch parts” during the period when Mr. Wood worked at the garage (id. ) and that Mrs. Wood had insufficient evidence of the extent to which the garage had used Ford products as the replacement parts. Id. at 30–33, 703 A.2d 1315. For that reason, this Court concluded that “the evidence simply was too thin to demonstrate that Mr. Wood frequently and regularly worked in proximity to mechanics applying Ford brake and clutch products.” Id. at 33, 703 A.2d 1315.

As an alternative ground to uphold the verdict, Mrs. Wood argued that Ford had a duty to warn of the dangers involved in replacing the asbestos-containing brakes and clutches on its vehicles, regardless of who manufactured the replacement parts. Id. This Court rejected that argument, first, because Mrs. Wood had not tried the case on that theory (and thus because Ford had not had the opportunity to defend the case on that theory). Id. Nonetheless, this Court went on to state that even if Mrs. Wood had proceeded on her alternative theory, Ford would have no liability for replacement or component parts that it neither manufactured nor placed into the stream of commerce. Id. at 34, 703 A.2d 1315.

Surveying the state of the law in 1998, this Court observed that a manufacturer could be held liable for defective component parts manufactured by another person only if the manufacturer incorporated the defective part into its finished product. Id. (citing Baughman v. Gen. Motors Corp., 780 F.2d 1131, 1132 (4th Cir.1986) ; Exxon Shipping Co. v. Pac. Res., Inc., 789 F.Supp. 1521, 1527 (D.Haw.1991) ; Comstock v. Gen. Motors Corp., 358 Mich. 163, 99 N.W.2d 627 (1...