Joyce v. A.C. and S., Inc.
| Decision Date | 28 February 1986 |
| Docket Number | 85-1255,Nos. 84-2064,s. 84-2064 |
| Citation | 785 F.2d 1200 |
| Parties | Prod.Liab.Rep.(CCH)P 10,932 James Troy JOYCE, Appellant, and William S. Legus, Sr., James S. Moore, William S. Legus, Sr., Executor of the will of Bessie C. Legus, Plaintiffs, v. A.C. AND S., INC., a/k/a Acands, Inc.; Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc.; Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp.; Pittsburgh Corning Corp.; Celotex Corp.; Armstrong Cork Co.; E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., Inc.; Gale Corp.; Lake Asbestos of Quebec, Ltd.; GAF Corp.; Raymark Industries, Inc.; Turner & Newall, PLC, Appellees, and Atlas Turner, Ltd.; Bell Asbestos Mines, Ltd.; Keene Corp.; Southern Textile Corp.; Nicolet, Inc.; Forty-Eight Insulation, Inc., Defendants. James Troy JOYCE; William S. Legus, Sr.; James S. Moore; William S. Legus, Sr., Executor of the will of Bessie C. Legus, Appellants, v. E.I. DuPONT de NEMOURS & CO., INC., Appellee, and A.C. and S., Inc., a/k/a Acands, Inc.; Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc.; Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp.; Pittsburgh Corning Corp.; Armstrong World Ind., Inc.; The Celotex Corp.; Fiberboard Corp.; Armstrong Cork Co.; Atlas Turner, Ltd.; Bell Asbestos Mines, Ltd.; Gale Corp.; Keene Corp.; Lake Asbestos of Quebec, Ltd.; GAF Corp.; Raymark Industries, Inc.; Southern Textile Corp.; Nicolet, Inc.; Turner & Newall, PLC; Forty-Eight Insulation, Inc., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Joel I. Klein (Onek, Klein & Farr on brief) and Thomas Crumplar (Robert Jacobs; Jacobs & Crumplar, P.A.; Fred D. Smith, Jr.; Hartley & Smith, P.C. on brief), for appellants.
John Y. Pearson, Jr. (Willcox, Savage, Dickson, Hollis & Eley on brief) and Lewis T. Booker (Virginia W. Powell; Hunton & Williams on brief), for appellee.
Before PHILLIPS and SNEEDEN, Circuit Judges, and SWYGERT, Senior United States Circuit Judge, sitting by designation.
James Troy Joyce appeals the dismissal of his claims against various miners and manufacturers of asbestos products 1 (manufacturers), and against E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. (DuPont), his former employer, for damages allegedly resulting from his occupational exposure to asbestos insulation over a period of several years. The district court, 591 F.Supp. 449 (W.D.Va.1984), held that Joyce's claims against the manufacturers were barred by Virginia's two-year statute of limitations on actions for personal injuries, and dismissed all but one of his claims against DuPont pursuant to the exclusivity provision of the Virginia Workers' Compensation Act. After permitting limited discovery, the district court granted summary judgment for DuPont in connection with Joyce's remaining claim, for alleged fraudulent concealment of his medical condition. Finding no error in any of the rulings by the district court, we affirm.
The facts are not in dispute. James Troy Joyce 2 was employed by DuPont, in its Martinsville, Virginia, plant, for four months in 1946 and later continuously from 1951 through March 1982, when he retired due to ill health. Joyce was exposed to asbestos while working as an insulator for approximately eleven years, from 1952 to 1955 and again from 1964 to 1972. In 1972, after learning from newspaper articles of the potential hazards of asbestos, Joyce obtained a job transfer in order to avoid further exposure to asbestos insulation.
Joyce nevertheless suffered pleural thickening in one lung at least as early as 1970. 3 This condition, revealed by chest X-rays taken in connection with annual physical examinations, was asymptomatic and remained relatively unchanged until 1981. In his deposition testimony, Dr. James Layton, Medical Director at DuPont's Martinsville plant, claimed that during this period he was unaware of any connection between the pleural thickening and asbestosis.
In 1979, DuPont adopted a company-wide policy of sending to outside radiologists the X-rays of all employees who had been exposed to asbestos. An independent radiologist thus reviewed Joyce's 1980 X-rays and concluded that there had been no change over the preceding decade. In addition to chest X-rays, DuPont also began to administer pulmonary function tests to asbestos workers. Joyce's 1980 pulmonary function test was normal.
In January 1981, citing a "heightened sensitivity" to a possible link between pleural thickening and asbestos exposure, Dr. Layton sent a group of employees, including Joyce, to Dr. William P. O'Neill, a pulmonary specialist. Dr. O'Neill determined that, although his pulmonary function remained normal, Joyce had mild pleural asbestosis manifested by pleural thickening in both lungs. Joyce was informed of this diagnosis, obtained other opinions, and eventually underwent surgery for his lung disorder.
Joyce has since developed pleural effusion and parenchymal asbestosis. Joyce, a citizen of Virginia, filed this action, invoking the district court's diversity jurisdiction, on January 10, 1983. He sought damages relating to pleural effusion and parenchymal asbestosis 4 and alleged, with respect to the manufacturers, negligent failure to warn, fraudulent misrepresentation or concealment, conspiracy, strict liability, and malicious or reckless disregard for his rights.
According to medical evidence in the record, Joyce developed pleural effusion sometime between January 13 and July 1981, but showed no signs of parenchymal asbestosis until sometime after his final visit with Dr. O'Neill, on September 2, 1981. Thus, both of these diseases, which, for purposes of their motion for summary judgment, the manufacturers agreed to characterize as separate and distinct illnesses, rather than progressive stages of the initial pleural thickening, developed within two years of the filing of Joyce's complaint.
The district court nevertheless held that Virginia's two-year statute of limitations had been triggered by the onset, many years earlier, of Joyce's first asbestos-related disease, pleural thickening, and that his action for damages in connection with the later diseases was therefore untimely. The manufacturers' motion for summary judgment was granted on this basis, and the claims against them dismissed.
Joyce's claims against his employer, DuPont, took two forms. First, he claimed that DuPont intentionally failed to warn of the inherent dangers of asbestos and failed to take steps to alleviate exposure to asbestos products, seeking damages for his pleural effusion and parenchymal asbestosis. The district court granted DuPont's motion to dismiss on the ground that Virginia's Workers' Compensation Act provides the exclusive remedy for the injuries alleged.
Joyce separately urged that DuPont had fraudulently concealed his medical condition during the limitations period, depriving him of a valuable property right--his cause of action against the manufacturers, should they prevail on their statute of limitations defense. The district court denied DuPont's motion to dismiss and permitted discovery on the issue of concealment, but later granted summary judgment in DuPont's favor on the basis that Joyce had failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact with respect to the alleged fraudulent concealment and that DuPont was entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
In this appeal, Joyce challenges the adverse disposition of each of his claims, which we now examine in turn.
Because jurisdiction in this case is based upon diversity, we must look to Virginia law to determine both the applicable statute of limitations and the time at which these claims accrued thereunder. See Ragan v. Merchants Transfer and Warehouse Co., 337 U.S. 530, 69 S.Ct. 1233, 93 L.Ed. 1520 (1949). The parties agree that Virginia's two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims applies in this case. Va.Code Sec. 8.01-243(A) (1984). The only issue on appeal is thus whether these claims accrued when the pleural effusions and parenchymal asbestosis diseases first appeared, within the limitations period, or when Joyce developed pleural thickening more than ten years earlier. Although this precise issue has not been addressed by the Supreme Court of Virginia, we are constrained to hold that, given that court's prior decisions and adherence to the theory that in an action for personal injury, there is but a single, indivisible cause of action, Joyce's only cause of action against the manufacturers accrued when he first developed pleural thickening sometime prior to 1970.
The Virginia statute of limitations for personal injuries provides, in pertinent part, that "every action for personal injuries, whatever the theory of recovery, ... shall be brought within two years next after the cause of action shall have accrued." Va.Code Sec. 8.01-243(A) (1984). Accrual is governed by Va.Code Sec. 8.01-230 (1984), which provides that "[i]n every action for which a limitation period is prescribed, the cause of action shall be deemed to accrue and the prescribed limitation period shall begin to run from the date the injury is sustained...." The issue of accrual of a cause of action for latent asbestos-related disease was addressed by the Virginia Supreme Court for the first time in Locke v. Johns-Manville Corp., 221 Va. 951, 275 S.E.2d 900 (1981).
In Locke, the plaintiff sought damages for malignant mesothelioma suffered as a result of occupational exposure to airborne asbestos fibers between 1948 and 1972. Locke was apparently in excellent health until he experienced symptoms in 1978, and a subsequent chest X-ray revealed mesothelioma. The trial court held that Locke's complaint, filed in 1978, was untimely because his exposure to asbestos had ended nearly six years earlier. The issue on appeal was whether the cause of action accrued at or before the last tortious exposure in 1972 or at the time that Locke first developed mesothelioma several years later.
Defining "injury" (for purposes of Sec. 8.01-230, the date on which a cause of action accrues) to...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Ball v. Joy Mfg. Co., Civ. A. No. 1:87-0268
...contain a deliberate intent exception. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit also noted in Joyce v. A.C. and S., Inc., 785 F.2d 1200, 1206 (4th Cir.1986), that "the Supreme Court of Virginia has not yet addressed the question whether an employer's intentional tort gives ......
-
Haigh v. Matsushita Elec. Corp. of America
...acts which merely cause, but are not designed to produce, an injury, are within the coverage of the Act. Joyce v. A.C. and S., Inc., 785 F.2d 1200, 1207 (4th Cir.1986). The Joyce court conducted an Indiana law analysis, and Even under the Indiana rule, which would likely be followed by the ......
-
Grillo v. National Bank of Washington
...provisions of the WCA's predecessor, the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act ("LHWCA")); see Joyce v. A.C. & S., Inc., 785 F.2d 1200 (4th Cir. 1986) (only accidental injuries are compensable under the WCA); Richardson v. The Fair, Inc., 124 S.W.2d 885, 886 (Tex.Civ. App. 193......
-
Potts v. Celotex Corp.
...45. A few jurisdictions have held that the statute begins to run from the manifestation of the initial illness. See Joyce v. A.C. & S., Inc., 785 F.2d 1200 (4th Cir.1986); Matthews v. Celotex Corp., 569 F.Supp. 1539 (D.N.D.1983); Cathcart v. Keene Industrial Insulation, 324 Pa.Super. 123, 1......