Jurich v. Garlock, Inc.

• Decision Date: 18 October 2001
• Docket Number: No. 45A03-0010-CV-366.,45A03-0010-CV-366.
• Citation: 759 N.E.2d 1066
• Parties: Carole JURICH, Individually and as Special Administrator of the Estate of Nicholas Jurich, Appellant-Plaintiff, v. GARLOCK, INC., et al., Appellees-Defendants.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

759 N.E.2d 1066

Carole JURICH, Individually and as Special Administrator of the Estate of Nicholas Jurich, Appellant-Plaintiff, v. GARLOCK, INC., et al., Appellees-Defendants.

No. 45A03-0010-CV-366.

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

October 18, 2001.

Donald J. Berger, Berger, James & Gammage, South Bend, IN, Robert G. McCoy, Mark R. Penney, Cascino, Vaughn Law Offices, Ltd., Chicago, IL, Attorneys for Appellant.

David A. Temple, Lowe, Gray, Steele & Darko, LLP, Indianapolis, IN, Thomas W. Hayes, Law Office of William M. Koziol, Long Grove, IL, Attorneys for John Crane, Inc.

Thomas S. Ehrhardt, Kopka, Landau & Pinkus, Crown Point, IN, Attorney for WTI Rust Holdings, Inc.

OPINION

BARNES, Judge.

Case Summary

Carole Jurich, individually and as administrator of Nicholas Jurich's estate, appeals the grant of summary judgment in favor of Anchor Packing Company, Garlock Inc., John Crane Company, and WTI Rust Holdings, Inc., which was granted on the basis that the action was barred by the Indiana Product Liability Act's ten-year statute of repose. We reverse and remand.

Issues

There are two issues before us today:

I. whether the exception to the Indiana Product Liability Act's (PLA's) ten-year statute of repose for certain asbestos-related actions applied to these defendants; and

II. whether the PLA's general ten-year statute of repose, as applied to the Jurichs' claims, violates the Indiana Constitution.

Facts

The facts most favorable to the summary judgment nonmovant, Carole Jurich, follow. Nicholas Jurich worked at Inland Steel in East Chicago from 1946 to 1986. In the 1950's, Mr. Jurich began to work as a pipe fitter at the mill; in 1970, he became a mill mechanic. His duties included the cutting of pipe covering insulation and the installation and removal of gaskets. Both of these processes resulted in the release of asbestos dust, which Mr. Jurich inhaled. He also worked near furnaces that used asbestos panels and he personally worked with a powdered form of asbestos that, when mixed with water, was used to temporarily patch holes in the furnaces. He also replaced asbestos-containing gaskets on the furnaces. Mr. Jurich was able to specifically identify some of the asbestos-containing products he handled as being manufactured by Garlock, John Crane, and Anchor Packing. He identified the furnaces as Swindell-Dressler models, and the trial court ruled in WTI's earlier motion for summary judgment alleging a lack of product identification evidence that there was "a fair showing that a line of responsibility for the manufacture and sale of Swindell-Dressler furnaces can be extended to defendant WTI Rust Holdings, Inc." Record p. 1215.

On October 10, 1996, more than ten years after he ceased working for Inland Steel, a biopsy revealed that Mr. Jurich was suffering from mesothelioma.¹ This disease has a latency period of between five and seventy years. He and his wife Carole filed their first complaint against the defendants on April 3, 1997, seeking damages for personal injuries and loss of consortium. Mr. Jurich died of mesothelioma on November 19, 1997, and Mrs. Jurich has continued to prosecute the case on her own and the estate's behalf. The defendants moved for summary judgment on the ground that the Jurichs' claims were barred by the PLA's ten-year statute of repose and that they (the defendants) did not fall within the PLA's exception for certain asbestos-related actions. The trial court granted the motions on August 28, 2000, and this appeal ensued.

Analysis

I. Summary Judgment Standard

The standard of appellate review of a summary judgment ruling is the same as that used by the trial court: summary judgment is appropriate only where the evidence shows that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Ind. Trial Rule 56(C); Boggs v. Tri-State Radiology, Inc., 730 N.E.2d 692, 695 (Ind.2000). All facts and reasonable inferences drawn from those facts are construed in favor of the nonmoving party. Boggs, 730 N.E.2d at 695. When the moving party asserts the statute of limitations as an affirmative defense and establishes that the action was commenced beyond the statutory period, the burden shifts to the nonmovant to establish an issue of fact material to a theory that avoids the defense. Id.

II. Exception to the PLA's Statute of Repose

The defendants argue that because Mr. Jurich was diagnosed with mesothelioma more than ten years after he ceased working at Inland Steel, which necessarily means more than ten years after he could have been exposed to asbestos from any of their products following their initial delivery, the PLA's ten-year statute of repose acts to bar the Jurichs' cause of action. Mrs. Jurich responds that the defendants fall within a legislative exception to the statute of repose for certain asbestos related actions.

Indiana Code Section 34-20-3-1(b) provides:

Except as provided in section 2 of this chapter, a product liability action must be commenced:

(1) within two (2) years after the cause of action accrues; or

(2) within ten (10) years after the delivery of the product to the initial user or consumer.

However, if the cause of action accrues at least eight (8) years but less than ten (10) years after that initial delivery, the action may be commenced at any time within two (2) years after the cause of action accrues.

Section 34-20-3-2, on the other hand, provides:

(a) A product liability action that is based on:

(1) property damage resulting from asbestos; or

(2) personal injury, disability, disease, or death resulting from exposure to asbestos;

must be commenced within two (2) years after the cause of action accrues....

(b) A product liability action for personal injury, disability, disease, or death resulting from exposure to asbestos accrues on the date when the injured person knows that the person has an asbestos related disease or injury.

* * * * * *

(d) This section applies only to product liability actions against:

(1) persons who mined and sold commercial asbestos; and

(2) funds that have, as a result of bankruptcy proceedings or to avoid bankruptcy proceedings, been created for the payment of asbestos related disease claims or asbestos related property damage claims.

* * * * * *

(f) Except for the cause of action expressly recognized in this section, this section does not otherwise modify the limitation of action or repose period contained in section 1 of this chapter.

(Emphasis added).

The trial court concluded that because there was no evidence that the defendants ever mined asbestos, this exception to the statute of repose did not apply to them. However, another panel of this court recently interpreted Indiana Code Section 34-20-3-2(d)(1) to mean that the statute of repose exception was intended to apply "to entities that sell commercial asbestos, even if they do not mine it." Black v. ACandS, Inc., et al., 752 N.E.2d 148, 155 (Ind.Ct.App.2001)². That interpretation strikes us as reasonable. We need not rehash the reasoning of the Black panel. We do note the rule of statutory construction that "`[a]ll statutory language is deemed to have been used intentionally. Words or clauses in statutes are to be treated as surplusage only in the absence of any other possible course.'" Preston v. State, 735 N.E.2d 330, 333 (Ind.Ct.App. 2000) (quoting Baker v. State, 483 N.E.2d 772, 774 (Ind.Ct.App.1985),trans. denied). We find it difficult to accept that anyone would have mined and accumulated large quantities of asbestos strictly for their own use, or that such a product would have been distributed gratuitously. It would be redundant to place the words "and sold" after "persons who mined," unless "and sold" is interpreted to mean "persons who sold" commercial asbestos as separate and distinct from "persons who mined" and, as a matter of common sense, also necessarily sold asbestos at some point to some other entity. We also observe that a company that mined but did not sell asbestos would not have placed any asbestos into the stream of commerce, as required to sustain a product liability action, unless by some unlikely scenario in which a miner gave away its asbestos. See Ind.Code § 34-20-2-1.

The Black court, however, did not discuss whether sellers of "commercial asbestos" include entities that sold any asbestos-containing products. The same rule of construction that leads us to conclude that "and sold" refers to a different group of entities than miners—i.e., words or clauses in a statute generally should not be considered surplusage—requires us to construe and give meaning to the word "commercial" as it modifies asbestos. "Commercial" has been defined as "[o]f, relating to, or being goods, often unrefined, produced and distributed in large quantities for use by industry." American Heritage College Dictionary 280 (3d ed. 2000).³ Jurich cites us to 40 C.F.R. § 61.141 to support her argument that "commercial asbestos" includes any asbestos-containing product. However, our reading of the entirety of this Environmental Protection Agency regulation leads us to the opposite conclusion. The regulation states that "[c]ommercial asbestos means any material containing asbestos that is extracted from ore and has value because of its asbestos content." Elsewhere, there are clear indications that the EPA considered "commercial asbestos" to be a bulk product separate from asbestos-containing products, for example: "Fabricating means any processing ... of a manufactured product that contains commercial asbestos...." Id. (emphasis added). Also, "[m]anufacturing means the combining of commercial asbestos ... with any other material(s), including commercial asbestos, and the processing of this combination into a product." Id. (emphasis added). Thus, we agree with Sears Roebuck and Co. v. Noppert, 705 N.E.2d 1065, 1068 (Ind.Ct.App.1999),trans. denied, to the extent that panel believed "commercial asbestos"...