Sarjeant v. City of Long Beach

Background

The court issued an order on motions in limine, which are requests to decide before trial whether particular evidence may be presented to the jury. The opinion addresses Docket Nos. 314 through 325, but states that Docket Nos. 317, 320, 321, and 323 would be discussed at the pretrial conference.

Rulings on the plaintiffs’ motions

- Docket No. 314: Plaintiff’s Motion in Limine No. 1 to exclude the complaint and answers was granted in part and denied in part. Section V of the First Amended Complaint, titled “The Asbestos Exposures,” was admissible as a judicial admission and relevant to helping the jury decide the extent of Kaiser Gypsum’s liability for Sarjeant’s non-economic damages. The rest of the complaint and the defendants’ answers were excluded under Federal Rule of Evidence 403 because they were marginally relevant, if relevant at all, to determining Sarjeant’s other asbestos exposures and would waste the jury’s time.

- Docket No. 315: Plaintiff’s Motion in Limine No. 2 to exclude references to Sarjeant’s talc pleurodesis procedure was granted. The court found that references to the procedures could prejudice or confuse the jury by suggesting that Sarjeant’s cancer was caused by the procedure. The court also found the evidence of limited relevance because the defendants sought to use it only to show that not all talc contains asbestos, a point the plaintiffs did not contest. If there was no stipulation on that point, Kaiser Gypsum could use other, less prejudicial evidence.

- Docket No. 316: Plaintiff’s Motion in Limine No. 3 to exclude defense expert Lombard’s testimony was granted in part and denied in part. The court found Lombard qualified under Rule 702 to testify about using drywall, wall texture, and ceiling texture in home construction. It also found that his opinion that Sarjeant had about 3.5 hours of exposure to dust from Kaiser Gypsum products rested on sufficient facts and a reliable application of his experience. That testimony was admissible because its value in helping the jury understand the likely duration of construction tasks and asbestos-dust exposure outweighed its prejudicial effect. Lombard was not qualified, however, to testify about whether Kaiser Gypsum products were sold in local hardware stores, so that proposed testimony was excluded.

- Docket Nos. 318 and 319: Plaintiffs’ Motions in Limine Nos. 4 and 5 were denied as moot. The experts involved had originally been designated by Vanderbilt, which had since been dismissed, and were not on Kaiser Gypsum’s witness list.

Rulings on the defendants’ motions

- Docket No. 322: Defendant’s Motion in Limine No. 4 to exclude Doubt Is Their Product by David Michaels was granted. The court found that the book and article were hearsay—that is, out-of-court material offered for its truth—with no applicable exception, irrelevant, and highly prejudicial under Rule 403. The court also found that the material was not the type of information an expert in the field would rely on in forming an opinion under Rule 703.

- Docket No. 324: Defendant’s Motion in Limine No. 6 to exclude “reptile theory” was denied. Kaiser Gypsum did not identify specific evidence to exclude. The court stated that potentially “reptilian” conduct by lawyers or witnesses would be evaluated individually during trial.

- Docket No. 325: Defendant’s Motion in Limine No. 7 to exclude the Welch amicus brief was granted. The court found that the brief was an advocacy document from a court proceeding and was inadmissible hearsay even though it was later published in a scientific journal. The plaintiffs’ experts could not testify about it as a basis for their opinions under Rule 703 because it was not the type of material a scientific expert would reasonably rely on. The court also found that the jury might give the document too much weight because it was signed by 51 other people in the field, making its prejudicial effect greater than its possible usefulness.

Disposition and scope

The court ruled on the motions as described above and stated that Docket Nos. 317, 320, 321, and 323 would be addressed at the pretrial conference. This was an evidentiary, pretrial order rather than a decision on the parties’ underlying asbestos-liability claims.