Central Wesleyan College v. W.R. Grace & Co.
| Decision Date | 24 September 1993 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 92-2268,92-2269,s. 92-2268 |
| Parties | , 86 Ed. Law Rep. 69 CENTRAL WESLEYAN COLLEGE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. W.R. GRACE & CO.; United States Gypsum Company; AC & S, Incorporated; A.P. Green Refractories Company; Armstrong World Industries, Incorporated; Fibreboard Corporation; Flintkote Company; GAF Corporation; General Refractories Company; Grant Wilson Inc.; Babcock & Wilcox Co.; Basic, Incorporated; California Products Corporation; Crown Cork & Seal Company, Incorporated; Dana Corporation; Dodson Manufacturing Company; Keene Corporation; Lac D'Amainte Du Quebec, Ltee; Ohio Lime Company; Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation; Owens-Illinois, Incorporated; Pfizer, Incorporated; Rock Wool Manufacturing Company, Incorporated; Uniroyal Incorporated; United States Mineral Products Company; Vimasco Corporation; Pittsburgh Corning Corporation; Turner & Newall, Ltd.; Cassiar Mining Corporation, Defendants-Appellants, and National Gypsum Company; Acoustics, Incorporated; Amchem Products, Incorporated; American Asbestos Products, Incorporated; American Energy Products, Incorporated; Asbestos Corporation, Ltd.; Asbestos Corporation; Asbestos Fibers, Incorporated; Asbestospray Corporation; Eagle Picher Industries; Empire Ace Insulation Manufacturing Corporation; Empire Asbestos Products, Incorporated; Foster Wheeler Corporation; Forty-Eight Insulations, Inc.; Garlock, Inc.; Georgia-Pacific Corporation; Grefco, Incorporated; H & A Construction Corporation; Hamilton Materials, Incorporated; H.K. Porter Company, Incorporated; Highland Stucco & Lime Products, Incorporated; Hollywood Stucco Products, Incorporated; Huxley Development Corporation; IPA Systems, Incorporated; J.W. Roberts, Ltd.; John Crane-Houdaille, Incorporated; Asten Group, Incorporated; Atlas Turner, Inc.; Carey Canada, Inc.; The Celotex Corporation; Certainteed Corporation; Charter Consolidated Investments; Charter Industries; Chemrock Corporation; Combustion Engineering, Incorporated; Kaiser Refractories; Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation; Kaise |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Thomas W. Kirby, Wiley, Rein & Fielding, Washington, DC, argued (Joseph B.G. Fay, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Philadelphia, PA, for appellant U.S. Gypsum; Michael T. Cole, Wise & Cole, P.A., Charleston, SC, for appellant Pfizer; Allen S. Joslyn, P. Kevin Castel, Cahill, Gordon & Reindel, New York City, for appellant W.R. Grace & Co., on brief), for appellants.
Arthur R. Miller, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, argued (Daniel A. Speights, Speights & Runyon, Hampton, SC; Edward J. Westbrook, Ness, Motley, Loadholt, Richardson & Poole, Charleston, SC, on brief), for appellee.
Before ERVIN, Chief Judge, WILKINSON, Circuit Judge, and HILTON, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.
This case presents the question of whether conditional class certification was appropriate in a suit brought against a group of asbestos producers on behalf of those colleges and universities with friable asbestos in their buildings. The district court granted plaintiff's motion for certification on the condition that discovery be primarily limited to eight "common issues," which the court deemed to predominate at this stage of the litigation. Central Wesleyan College v. W.R. Grace & Co., 143 F.R.D. 628, 642-43 (D.S.C.1992). Although manageability problems present concerns in a lawsuit of this magnitude, the class mechanism may advance this action and reduce the need for repetitive litigation in this area. The district court made detailed findings to support its holding, and we cannot say that the court abused its discretion in conditionally certifying the class. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's judgment.
Plaintiff Central Wesleyan College is a small college in Central, South Carolina. As many as eight of the buildings on its eight or nine building campus contain asbestos products, including pipe insulation, hot water tank insulation, elbow insulation, spray insulation, and spray ceiling material. In July 1987, Central Wesleyan filed this lawsuit on behalf of itself and a class of all public or private colleges and universities in the United States that have suffered property damage due to the presence of friable asbestos in any of their facilities. "Friable" asbestos refers to asbestos products that "when dry, can be crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder by hand pressure." 40 C.F.R. Sec. 61.141. The district court estimated that some sixteen to thirty-five percent of America's colleges and universities were potential class members. The complaint seeks compensation for the costs of controlling and eventually removing the asbestos as required by federal law. See 40 C.F.R. Secs. 61.12(c), 61.145(c), 61.150. The complaint also seeks punitive damages.
It is important at the outset to review the history of asbestos litigation as a background to the present lawsuit. Beginning in the late 1960s, numerous personal injury cases were filed after studies linked asbestos particle exposure to asbestosis and other diseases. See Borel v. Fibreboard Paper Prod. Corp., 493 F.2d 1076, 1083-85 (5th Cir.1973). Courts rejected early attempts to bring asbestos personal injury class actions, fearing that such cases involved too many individual issues. See, e.g., Yandle v. PPG Indus., Inc., 65 F.R.D. 566, 570-71 (E.D.Tex.1974). As the stream of cases became a torrent, however, the courts began to reconsider whether certain issues surrounding asbestos and its known dangers were essentially the same in most cases. These issues included (1) the general health hazards of asbestos; (2) when defendants knew or had reason to know of these hazards; (3) whether defendants failed to test their products or warn the public about them; (4) whether the asbestos industry engaged in any concerted action or conspiracy; and (5) whether defendants should be liable for punitive damages. As the volume of litigation rose, the courts became more receptive to...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Miller v. Pacific Shore Funding, No. 02-CV-569.
... ... Wesleyan Coll. v. W.R. Grace & Co., 6 F.3d 177, 188 (4th Cir.1993) ... ...
-
Lowery v. Circuit City Stores, Inc.
...the practical and primarily factual problems of administering a lawsuit than does a court of appeals." Central Wesleyan College v. W.R. Grace & Co., 6 F.3d 177, 185 (4th Cir.1993) (internal quotation marks and ellipses The Plaintiffs first argue that the district court erroneously decertifi......
-
Davis v. Samuel I. White, P.C.
...(E.D. Va. 2014) (explaining that "[t]he Court has the discretion to certify a class or not . . .") (citing Cent. Wesleyan College v. W.R. Grace Co., 6 F.3d 177, 185 (4th Cir. 1993); Thorn v. Jefferson-Pilot Life Ins. Co., 445 F.3d 311, 317 (4th Cir. 2006); Wu v. MAMSI Life & Health Ins. Co.......
-
Dish v. Firstplus Home Loan Trust 1996-2, 1:01CV00923.
...by other, unidentified members of the class to which they belong and which they purport to represent.'" Cent. Wesleyan Coll. v. W.R. Grace & Co., 6 F.3d 177, 188 (4th Cir.1993) (quoting Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 1001 n. 13, 102 S.Ct. 2777, 2784 n. 13, 73 L.Ed.2d 534 (1982) (citations ......