Sarjeant v. Foster Wheeler LLC (N.D. Cal., Oct. 2, 2024)

Our plain-English summary of Sarjeant v. Foster Wheeler LLC (U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, October 2, 2024).

James Sarjeant sued Foster Wheeler LLC and other defendants in federal court in Northern California. He has mesothelioma. Vanderbilt, a talc supplier, moved for summary judgment. The dispute concerned Kaiser Gypsum joint compounds and ceiling textures that Sarjeant said he used, and whether Vanderbilt's talc was in them. The court granted the motion as to a DAP product Sarjeant used. It denied the motion as to the Kaiser Gypsum products. Vanderbilt argued that Sarjeant's declaration naming specific Kaiser products was a sham because he had not remembered product names at deposition. The court found no clear and unambiguous contradiction and left credibility to the jury. A Kaiser representative said Vanderbilt's New York talc would not have been used in California. Sarjeant offered evidence that Vanderbilt bought Western Talc Company, which mined talc in California, and that its Westal talc went into Kaiser products made in California, including at the Santa Ana plant. The court left that conflict for the jury. On the current record there was no evidence of fraud or grounds for punitive damages. The court deferred ruling and allowed a short supplemental brief after the corporate depositions.

We wrote this summary from the court's opinion with the help of AI. It is not the court's wording, and it is not legal advice. The full opinion is below.

The decision

• Court: U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
• Decided: October 2, 2024
• Docket: Case No. 24-cv-01216-VC
• Stage: Summary judgment
• State: California

Outcome. The court granted Vanderbilt's summary judgment motion as to Sarjeant's use of a DAP product, denied it as to the Kaiser Gypsum products, and deferred ruling on the fraud and punitive damages claims.

What the court held. A later declaration naming specific products does not count as a sham affidavit unless it clearly and unambiguously contradicts earlier testimony. Disputed evidence about whether a defendant's talc went into the products the plaintiff used is for the jury.

Issues decided: Causation, Trial Procedure and Discovery, Product Identification, Punitive Damages.

The people and their exposure

• James Sarjeant: mesothelioma

The defendants

• Vanderbilt (supplier)
• Kaiser Gypsum (manufacturer)
• Foster Wheeler LLC

The court's opinion

The text below is Google Scholar's copy of the court's opinion, a public record. Numbers in brackets, such as [*921], mark where each page of the printed reporter begins.

JAMES SARJEANT, etal., Plaintiffs,

v.

FOSTER WHEELER LLC, etal., Defendants.

Case No. 24-cv-01216-VC.

October 2, 2024.

United States District Court, N.D. California.

ORDER RE VANDERBILT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

VINCE CHHABRIA, District Judge.

Re: Dkt. No. 205

The motion is granted with respect to Sarjeant's use of a DAP product and denied with respect to Sarjeant's use of several Kaiser Gypsum products. The motion is deferred with respect to the fraud and punitive damages claims. There are genuine disputes of fact related to Sarjeant's exposure to Vanderbilt products and whether those products caused his mesothelioma. First, there's a dispute of fact whether Sarjeant used Kaiser Gypsum joint compounds and ceiling textures. Sarjeant filed a declaration stating he used Kaiser Gypsum premix joint compound and premix topping compound, Cover-Tex wall texture, and K-Spray ceiling texture. Vanderbilt argues that this declaration should be considered a sham affidavit because it contradicts Sarjeant's testimony in which he did not remember the specific names of Kaiser Gypsum products. However, the inconsistency is not "clear and unambiguous." Van Asdale v. International Game Technology, 577 F.3d 989, 998 (9th Cir. 2009). Contrary to Vanderbilt's assertion that Sarjeant testified that he only used joint compound, Sarjeant also mentioned using Kaiser Gypsum products that patch up walls and remembered Kaiser Gypsum in association with texture coating in his earlier deposition. Dkt. No. 205-4 at 5-7 (Sarjeant's June 3, 2024 Deposition). Sarjeant's declaration and testimony may be questionable in terms of credibility, but that is up to the jury to decide. Second, there's also a genuine dispute of fact as to whether Vanderbilt's talc was used to make the Kaiser Gypsum compounds and textures that Sarjeant says he worked with. Vanderbilt put forward an affidavit by a Kaiser Gypsum representative who said that Vanderbilt talc mined in New York would not be used by Kaiser Gypsum in California and that Kaiser's main West Coast supplier was Pfizer. But Sarjeant put forward evidence that Vanderbilt purchased Western Talc Company which mined talc in California and that Vanderbilt's Westal talc was used to produce Kaiser Gypsum premix compound, K-Spray ceiling texture, and Covertex in California plants, including at the Santa Ana plant which serviced the Southern California area. It's up to the jury to evaluate such evidence and decide whether Vanderbilt's talc was used in the Kaiser Gypsum products that Sarjeant used.

Finally, on the current record, there is no evidence from which a jury could find fraud or award punitive damages. But when the motion for summary judgment was filed, Sarjeant had not yet deposed Vanderbilt or Kaiser Gypsum's corporate representatives. Now those depositions should have been taken. Sarjeant may file a supplemental brief not to exceed 5 pages discussing anything from the deposition that would support their argument for fraud and punitive damages. Plaintiffs must include relevant portions of the deposition transcript plus enough pages on either side for the court to understand the context of the relevant portion. The supplemental brief is due Friday, October 4, 2024.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Sources

• The opinion on Google Scholar
• California asbestos laws
• California asbestos exposure sites