Document Dvjj2w92K5Z5E9R3V3dG9YpkB

STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 1 1 NO. 91-1760-H 2 H. WALLY SHIPLEY AND FAYE * IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF SHIPLEY; WELDON COOK AND * 3 BILLYE COOK; VIRGEL LEON k ZIMMERMAN AND RUTH k 4 ZIMMERMAN; HERBERT k WILLIAMS AND INEZ WILLIAMS k 5 ARTHUR JAMES DAVIS; and J.R. GENTLE 6 VS . 7 * DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS * * * * ARMSTRONG WORLD INDUSTRIES,* 8 INC., ET AL. * 160TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT 9! i 10 ORAL DEPOSITION 11 OF 12 STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 13 14 15 ANSWERS AND DEPOSITION OF STEPHEN J. SHEERAN, 16 produced as a witness at the instance of the 17 Plaintiffs, taken in the above-styled and -numbered 18 cause on the 4th day of October, 1991, at 10:00 19 a.m., before Denise M. Mallia, a Certified Shorthand 20 Reporter in and for the State of Texas, at the 2 1 offices of Silber, Pearlman & Worthington, 4514 Cole 22 Avenue, Suite 1000, in the City of Dallas, County of 23 Dallas, State of Texas, in accordance with the 24 Notice and with the agreement hereinafter set forth. 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS wi . snttnAft appearances 2 3 MR. ROGER G. WORTHINGTON Silber, Pearlman & Worthington 4 1000 Highland Park Place 4514 Cole Avenue, LB 34 5 Dallas, Texas 75205 6 FOR THE PLAINTIFFS 7 MS. SANDRA F. CLARK 8 MeHaffy & Weber 2615 Calder Avenue 9 P.O. Box 16 Beaumont, Texas 77704 10 11 FOR THE DEFENDANT, W.R. GRACE & COMPANY 12 MR. T. GRIFFIN VINCENT 13 Butler & Binion 1500 First Interstate Bank Plaza 14 Houston, Texas 77002 15 FOR THE DEFENDANT, OWENS-CORNING FIBERGLAS 16 CORPORATION 17 MR. THOMAS EVANS 18 DeHay & Blanchard Plaza of the Americas 19 600 North Pearl Street 2500 South Tower, LB 201 20 Dallas, Texas 75201-2880 21 FOR THE DEFENDANTS, GAF CORPORATION, A.P. 22 GREEN INDUSTRIES, INC., NATIONAL GYPSUM COMPANY, 23 U.S. GYPSUM COMPANY and ARMSTRONG WORLD 24 INDUSTRIES, INC. 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 3 1 MR. THOMAS F. DOUGALL Bowers Orr & Robertson 2 1401 Main Street Suite 1100 3 P.O. Box 7307 Columbia, South Carolina 29202 4 FOR THE DEFENDANT 5 PROKO INDUSTRIES, INC . 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 4 1 INDEX PAGE 2 Agreements ........................................................................................................... 5 3 WITNESS: STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 4 Examination by Mr. Worthington .......................... 7 5 Examination by Ms. Clark......................................131 6 Further examination by Mr. Worthington . 158 7 Further examination by Ms. Clark .... 169 8 Court Reporter's Certificates ................................................... 171 9 10 EXHIBIT INDEX 11 EXHIBIT PAGE PAGE 12 NO. DESCRIPTION MARKED IDENTIFIED 13 1 Amended notice of 90 intention to take 14 oral depositions duces tecum 15 2 List of major 49 16 Monokote fireproofing jobs. City of Dallas, 17 1972-1978 6 49 18 3 Texas and Oklahoma 86 Vermiculite companies 19 representative Mono-kote Fireproofing job list 20 4 Drawing of officeand 90 21 plant on Manilla Road 86 90 22 (Exhibits attached at the end of the 23 original and copy transcripts) 24 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 3 1 AGREEMENTS 2 MR. WORTHINGTON: Before we 3 swear the witness in, let me propose a 4 few agreements. This deposition is 5 being taken pursuant to notice under 6 the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. I 7 propose that all objections except as 8 to the form of the question and 9 responsiveness of the answer are 10 reserved until trial or other judicial 11 use of this deposition transcript. An 12 objection by one counsel is good for 13 all. 14 What are the other standard 15 agreements that I don't know about? 16 MS. CLARK: I wasn't paying 17 attention. Did you already do form of 18 the question and all that jazz? 19 MR. WORTHINGTON: Yeah. Mr. 20 Sheeran, do you wish to read the 21 deposition transcript or do you wish 22 to waive signature on the deposition 23 transcript, or do you even know what 24 that means? 25 THE WITNESS: I really don't PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 6 1 have any use for the transcript of the 2 deposition. 3 MR. WORTHINGTON: Then you would 4 agree to waive signature on this 5 transcript? 6 THE WITNESS: Yes. 7 MR. WORTHINGTON: Let's go off 8 the record a second. 9 (Discussion off the record.) 10 MR. WORTHINGTON: I'd like to 11 attach to the transcript as Plaintiff's 12 Exhibit No. 1 the notice of intention 13 to take oral deposition duces tecum 14 that was served by certified mail on 15 Mr. Sheeran in this case. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 7 1 STEPHEN J. SHEERAN, 2 the witness hereinbefore named, being first duly 3 cautioned and sworn to testify the truth, the whole 4 truth and nothing but the truth, testified on his 5 oath as follows: 6 EXAMINATION 7 BY MR. WORTHINGTON: 8 Q. State your name, please. 9 A. Stephen John Sheeran. 10 Q. Mr. Sheeran, my name is Roger 11 Worthington Have we met before? 12 A. No, sir. 13 Q. Mr. Sheeran, I represent a number of 14 persons who have filed lawsuits in Dallas County 15 claiming that they have sustained asbestos-related 16 injuries as a consequence of working around various 17 asbestos materials. I'd like to ask you some 18 questions today, but before I get to my line of 19 questioning, I'd like to focus your attention on 20 Exhibit 1, the deposition notice, and ask you if you 21 had a chance to read that document before today? 22 A. I have. 23 Q. Okay. In the notice I have asked you 24 to bring with you certain documents, to wit: On 25 exhibit C, I have a request for production. There PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 8 1 are, I count, eight separate categories of documents 2 which I requested that you produce here today. 3 Did you have a chance to read Exhibit 4 C? 5 A. Yes, sir. 6 Q. In response to thoserequests for 7 production, did you bring with you today any 8 documents that you believe are responsive? 9 A. One. 10 Q. One. Canyoushow me what that one 11 document is? 12 A. It was a list of -- this is a list of 13 projects that were built in the Dallas/Fort Worth 14 area dating back to -- at what point in time I'm not 15 sure. It was originally done in '71 and updated in 16 '78, and I have highlighted some of these with 17 yellow that indicate that they are -- a nonasbestos 18 material was used to the best of my knowledge. 19 Q. Okay. Can I see the documents? 20 A. Uh-huh. 21 Q. I count five pages of typewritten 22 documents; is that correct? 23 A. Yes. 24 Q. And where did you find these documents? 25 A. It was in a file that originally was PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SriEERAN 9 1 compiled by the president of Texas Vermiculite 2 Company, Mike Moran, and was used in part of an 3 actual promotion piece to highlight a laundry list 4 of successful projects. 5 Q. Okay. Did you keep a copy of these 6 documents in your own home in your own possession, 7 or did you go down to the company files to retrieve 8 these documents? 9 A. Those were in my possession for years. 10 Q. Do you recall when these documents were 11 generated? When were they first typed up and 12 delivered? 13 A. I believe 1971 was the first time -- 14 Q. Do you know who -- 15 A. -- some of the material was typed. 16 Q. Okay. 17 A. On the front copy itindicates '72 to 18 '78, so it's as new as '78. 19 Q. Do you know who typed this page up, 20 this page that says Grace on it. Major Monokote 21 Fireproofing Job, City of Dallas? 22 A. Probably one of the ladies ofthe 23 office -- 24 Q. Okay. 25 A. -- at Grace. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 10 1 Q. Do you know who provided the 2 typewritten information on the list? 3 A. The job names specifically? 4 Q . Yes, sir. 5 A. I think we all just sat down and 6 thought them, recalled them. 7 Q. When you say we, who are you referring 8 to? 9 A. Various people in the sales 10 organization. 11 Q. Do you recall any names of those folks? 12 A. At that time probably myself, Bob 13 Junker, probably Curtis Gibson. Ralph McCloud would 14 have been one. 15 Q. And also on page one there are various 16 handwritten figures in black ink and blue ink. Who 17 wrote those in, do you know? 18 A. I believe those are, in fact, by myself 19 and Ralph McCloud. 20 Q. Okay. Does the same hold true for the 21 penciled in numbers on page two? 22 A. Those appear to be Ralph McCloud's. 23 Q. And on page three next to a building it 24 says 25,000? 25 A. Again, that looks like his handwriting. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 11 1 q. Is that Ralph McCloud's handwriting, to 2 your knowledge, on page four as well? 3 A. It looks like it also, yes. 4 Q. Okay. I'm going to ask you some 5 questions later on about these documents. ` Mr. 6 Sheeran, I'm going to ask you why you generated them 7 and what these number signify, but first I'd like to 8 ask you some other background questions. Okay? 9 A. Fine. 10 Q. Before I get onto that, Mr. Sheeran, 11 have you produced today any other materials or 12 documents which I requested in Exhibit C? 13 A. No, I have not. 14 Q. Did you confine your search for 15 documents to your own home and your own property? 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. Okay. Did you ask anyone down at the 18 plant here on Manilla Road for any documents? 19 A. No. 20 Q. Did you ask any other present orformer 21 employees of W.R. Grace for any materials? 22 A. No. 23 Q. Do youhave inyourpossession at your 24 home a file in which you keep various documents that 25 you originally received while working at W.R. Grace? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 12 1 A. NO. 2 Q. I have in my hand the sum total of 3 documents which you have in your possession? 4 A. That's it. I had the bonfire in June. 5 Q. Pardon me? 6 A. Had the bonfire in June. 7 Q. Your house burned down? 8 A. No, I got rid of all my -9 Q. Oh, you burned all the other documents? 10 A. Trashed it in one form or another. 11 Q. That saves a lot of money from the 12 shredding costs, doesn't it, just go ahead and burn 13 it? 14 A. No, I no longer work for Grace. I had 15 no use for it. 16 Q. When did you stop working for Grace? 17 A. June 14th, 1991. 18 Q. What is your address? 19 A. 2315 Westbrook Drive, Carrollton, 20 Texas. 21 Q. How long have you lived in Carrollton, 22 Texas? 23 A. Since 1974. 24 Q. Had you lived anywhere else in Dallas? 25 A. Farmers Branch. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 13 1 Q. When did you first move to Farmers 2 Branch? 3 A. 1970, July 1. 4 Q. When did you first move to the 5 Dallas/Fort Worth area? 6 A. July of 1970. 7 Q. Okay. Prior to July 1970, where did 8 you live? 9 A. Outside of Detroit, Michigan. 10 Q. Okay. How old are you? 11 A. 52 . 12 Q. What is your date of birth? 13 A. July 9, 1939. 14 Q. I take it before July 1970, you were 15 employed in Detroit, Michigan? 16 A. Correct. 17 Q. Okay. What was your position in 18 Detroit, Michigan? 19 A. Architectural sales representative for 20 W.R. Grace. 21 Q. What year did you first go to work for 22 W.R. Grace? 23 A. 1966, May 1. 24 Q. Was that in Detroit, Michigan? 25 A. Correct. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 14 1 Q. Okay. And when you first were employed 2 by W.R. Grace, what was your position? 3 A. Territory sales rep. 4 Q. And then at some point, did you get a 5 promotion to architectural sales rep? 6 A. Yes. 7 Q. When did you get that promotion? 8 A. I'd guess 1968. 9 Q. 1968? 10 A. (Witness nods head.) 11 Q. Okay. Could you briefly tell me your 12 educational background? 13 A. 12 years of elementary and high school. 14 Two years full time attendance University of 15 Detroit. Various courses relating to 16 construction-related matters, sales schools, over a 17 period of years. No degree. 18 Q. Did you ever take any formal training 19 in the study of architecture? 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. What types of courses did you take 22 relating to architecture or design? 23 A. Again, over the years, various courses 24 offered by, primarily, the Construction 25 Specifications Institute, which I've been a member PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 15 1 since '66. 2 Q. The Construction Members Institute? 3 A. Construction Specifications Institute. 4 CSI for short. 5 Q. What types of courses did you take for 6 Construction Specifications Institute? 7 A. All technical related as far as 8 materials and the specification of materials. 9 Q. In any of these courses that you took 10 -- were these courses that you took back in the 11 ' 60s? 12 A. No, it was as recent as this year. 13 Q. Did you take any of these courses in 14 the '60s while you were working for Grace or prior 15 to working for Grace? 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. At any ofthese courses, did you ever 18 discuss any hazards -- any health hazards relating * 19 to any materials that were used in the construction 20 business? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. What types of materials did you learn 23 were hazardous in the construction trade? 24 A. I couldn't name them all but 25 combustibility of various materials was always a hot PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 16 1 button with professional designers. Those which 2 would produce toxic fumes, et cetera. 3 Q. When you're talking about materials -- 4 construction materials, are you talking about 5 plasters and joint compounds and millboards and wall 6 boards and fireproofing and acoustical plaster? 7 A. Insulation products. 8 Q. Insulation materials? 9 A. Right. 10 Q. Do you draw a distinction between an 11 insulation material and a construction product? 12 A. No. 13 Q. Do you believe joint compound is an 14 insulation material, for example? 15 A. No. 16 Q. In any of these courses that you took 17 prior to 1970, did any of your instructors ever 18 advise you as to the potential health hazards 19 associated with asbestos-containing materials? 20 A. No. 21 Q. Okay.When was the first time you ever 22 heard the word "asbestos"? 23 A. As related to what? 24 Q. Well, in any of these courses, for 25 example, did you ever talk about asbestos-containing PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 17 1 products and their economic and engineering utility 2 or thermal utility benefit? 3 A. Yes. Yes. Again, it would be 1968 4 probably. 5 Q. Okay. When you first went to work in 6 Detroit for W.R. Grace as a territory sales rep, 7 what types of products were you selling at that 8 time? What types of W.R. Grace products were you 9 selling at that time? 10 A. All of their insulation materials, 11 which were Vermiculite based. They also marketed a 12 line of glass fiber insulation blankets. 13 Q. Can you recall off the top of your head 14 any of the brand names of any of the insulation 15 materials manufactured by W.R. Grace that you were 16 selling up in Detroit? 17 A. They all carried a Zonolite trademark, 18 and they were Zonolite attic insulation, Zonolite 19 masonry insulation and the glass fiber was just a 20 Zonolite glass fiber home insulation. Also handled 21 Monokote fireproofing materials. 22 Q. Did you believe at that time that 23 Monokote fireproofing material was a Vermiculite 24 based product? 25 A. Yes, it was. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 18 1 Q. Did you also understand that it 2 contained asbestos fibers? 3 A. Yes, I did. 4 Q. Okay. Who informed you of that. do you 5 remember? 6 A. The fellow was my immediate superior at 7 the time. His name was Ed Kerr, K-e-r-r. 8 Q. Did Mr. Kerr or anyone else explain to 9 you the reason why asbestos was mixed into these 10 various fireproofing products manufactured by W.R. 11 Grace? 12 A. I would say yes, and the reason being 13 it added workability and re-enforcement to the 14 product. 15 Q. I'm sorry, Mr. Sheeran, I didn't hear 16 the first word. 17 A. Workability. 18 Q. Workability. 19 A. Plasterers use differentterms, and the 20 workability of a material has to do with how well it 21 sticks and trowels and... 22 Q. And what benefit did it provide as a 23 re-enforcing agent? 24 A. Well, strictly re-enforcingto give it 25 increased strength within its own thickness. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 19 1 cohesive strength. 2 Q. Did Mr. Kerr or anyone else discuss 3 with you the availability of substitute materials 4 for asbestos? 5 A. Not at that time. 6 Q. Okay. Did you ever have that 7 discussion? 8 A. Later. 9 Q. How much later? 10 A. With other folks. Mr. Kerr left Grace 11 about 1969. 12 Q. Do you rememberwhen you first 13 understood that there were available substitute 14 materials for asbestos in these fireproofing 15 materials? 16 A. The first I heard was in 1973. Well, 17 I'll take that back. It would be late '72. 18 Q. What were your job duties as a sales 19 representative? 20 A. At what time? 21 Q. In the 1960s while working up in 22 Detroit, Michigan? 23 A. I would call upon hard material 24 dealers, as they were known, lumber dealers and 25 plastering contractors. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 20 1 Q. Who were your chief competitors? Who 2 were W.R. Grace's chief competitors? 3 A. In different product lines, there were 4 different competitors. 5 Q. Let's say in the fireproofing product 6 line. 7 A. The market at that time had products 8 made by United States Gypsum and National Gypsum 9 which were similar to the Grace product. The other 10 competitors were mineral fiber and sprayed asbestos 11 fiber. 12 Q. In the '60s up in Detroit, did you sell 13 Zonolite Monokote MK-1? 14 A. No. 15 Q. Did you sell Zonolite Monokote MK-2? 16 A. No, I did not. 17 Q. How about MK-3? 18 A. Correct. MK-3 was the only product I 19 was aware of at that time. 20 Q. And you understood that that product 21 contained asbestos? 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. Have you ever heard the word 24 "chrysotile"? 25 A. Yes. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 21 I 1 Q. Did you understand what type of fiber 2 the MK-3 product contained? 3 A . Yes. 4 Q. What was it? 5 A. Chrysotile. 6 Q. Have you ever heard of tremolite 7 asbestos? 8 A. Yes. 9 Q. What did you understand tremolite 10 asbestos to be? 11 A. An asbestos form. 12 Q. Do you know that vermiculite ore 13 contains tremolite asbestos form? 14 A. Some does. 15 Q. Okay. Do you know that the vermiculite 16 ore mined from the Libby, Montana plant contains 17 tremolite asbestos form as a contaminant in the 18 rock? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. How did you learn that, by the way? 21 A. Good question. I would have to say 22 that the issue was originally raised by competitive 23 manufacturers or manufacturers who made a product 24 competitive to Monokote. 25 Q. Do you remember what time period that PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 22 1 was? Are we still up in Detroit? 2 A. No, this would be a later date. The 3 treaolite was a word I never heard, probably, until 4 1980, 1981 or 2, in that range. 5 Q. Had you heard that vermiculite was 6 contaminated with asbestos, whether tremolite or any 7 other word? 8 A. That phrase appeared in competitors' 9 1iterature. 10 Q. Okay. That's what I want to know. 11 When did you first see this literature by your 12 competition? 13 A. Mid-'80s. 14 Q. Mid-'80s. Okay. Do you remember the 15 names of your competition who were publicizing this? 16 A. One would have been United States 17 Mineral Products Company in a piece of literature 18 that they used to promote a product called Cafco, 19 C-a-f-c-o, sprayed mineral fiber. 20 Q. Do you remember the context in which 21 U.S. Mineral was publicizing the fact that 22 vermiculite had asbestos in it? Was it in a trade 23 brochure? Was it in a seminar? How did they convey 24 that? 25 A. It appeared in their regular glossy PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 23 Sweet's catalog that was used in an architectural 2 insert. 3 Q. What types of companies subscribed to 4 Sweet's catalog? 5 A. Most every architect and engineer firm 6 subscribes to Sweet's catalog. 7 Q. Is it updated every year? 8 A. Every year. 9 Q. Do you have knowledge whether Cafco 10 contained vermiculite? 11 A. One of their obscure products, I think, 12 did. Their Cafco Blazeshield spray applied mineral 13 fiber fireproofing did not. 14 Q. Did you ever speak with any 15 representative of U.S. Mineral Products about why 16 they were publicizing the fact that vermiculite had 17 asbestos in it? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. Who did you talk to about that? 20 A. Their independent sales agent. 21 Q. Do you remember his name? 22 A. Hobson Harel. 23 Q. Hobson Harel? 24 A. Uh-huh. 25 Q. Did he explain to you why they were PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 24 1 doing that? 2 A. Tried to get some business. 3 Q. Would it -4 A. It was a sales technique, okay, a tool? 5 Q. What do you believe his motivation was 6 after talking to him? 7 A. Money. 8 Q. Did he think that by telling all 9 potential customers that W.R. Grace products 10 contained asbestos contaminated vermiculite that 11 those customers would be less willing to buy W.R. 12 Grace products? 13 A. Yes. 14 Q. And then they would be more willing to 15 buy nonasbestos contaminated Cafco Blazeshield and 16 other fireproofing materials? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. Did you think that was fair? 19 A. All is fair in love and war. 20 Q. Business is a species of warfare, 21 wouldn't you agree? 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. This was in the 1980s? 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. And you were still selling PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 25 1 vermiculite-based fireproofing products? 2 A. Correct. 3 Q. Were those Monokote products? 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. Was that Monokote MK-6? 6 A. No, at that point it was MK-4, MK-5. 7 Q. Okay. Did your company ever retaliate 8 in any way? 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. What did W.R. Grace do about that? 11 A. Stated a bunch of figures such as the 12 occurrence or the volume of tremolite in its -- in 13 the finished product and the fact that the mineral 14 wool fibers are suspect themselves. 15 Q. Did Hobson Harel and U.S. Mineral 16 advocate to potential customers that asbestos was a 17 known health hazard? 18 A. Sure. 19 Q. Did W.R. Grace, to your knowledge, ever 20 attempt to refute that assertion? 21 A. As I stated, theywould cite that, in 22 the case of the tremolite, that as associated with 23 the vermiculite ore that the occurrence or the 24 volume in the finished product was a minuscule 25 amount, five to ten parts per million. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN co 1 Q. Do you know whether W.R. Grace ever 2 conducted any independent research to reach that 3 conclusion? 4 A. Oh, absolutely. 5 Q. Do you know when they began conducting 6 this research? 7 A. No, I don't. 8 Q. Do you think it was in the '80s? 9 A. I think it was. 10 Q. When you were working for W.R. Grace in 11 Detroit, do you have knowledge whether MK-3 was sold 12 to customers who used the product inside schools? 13 A. Yes. 14 Q. Do you know whether the MK-3 was 15 purchased by customers who used the product inside 16 hospitals? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. How about daycare centers? 19 A. I don't recall. 20 Q. How about commercial buildings? 21 A. Commercial buildings, very many. 22 Q. Skyscrapers? 23 A. Yes. 24 Q. How about churches? 25 A. Most likely. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 27 1 Q. Okay. How about court houses? 2 A. I'm sure there's a couple of those up 3 there, too 4 Q. Did W.R. Grace at that time also market 5 and sell Zono-Coustic? 6 A. Yes. 7 Q. To your knowledge that's an 8 asbestos-containing product? 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. What was Zono-Coustic used for? 11 A. Textured ceilings for noise reduction. 12 Q. Didn't have any thermal properties to 13 your knowledge? 14 A. To some degree but that was not one of 15 its advertised benefits. 16 Q. So to your knowledge, asbestos was not 17 put in the product -- the Zono-Coustic product in 18 order to provide heat resistance? 19 A. Originally it was, from a fire 20 standpoint 21 Q. But then later it wasn't? 22 A. No, it always was. Asbestos had all 23 sorts of properties that were assumed to be 24 beneficial. 25 Q. Not proven but assumed to be PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 2S 1 beneficial? 2 A. Well, I think that there was enough 3 fire tests run with the material that proved that it 4 was beneficial as a fire resistant material. 5 Q. Did you understand back in the '60s 6 when you were marketing and selling MK-3 and 7 Zono-Coustic that there were substitutes available 8 for asbestos which also provided for heat 9 resistance? 10 A. No. 11 Q. You were not aware of that? 12 A. Correct. All of the competitor 13 products had asbestos in them at that time. 14 Q. When did you move to Dallas, Texas? 15 A. July of 1970. 16 Q. Why did you move to our great city? 17 A. I liked it. 18 Q. Tell me about why you weretransferred, 19 or was it your decision to move down here, or did 20 the company transfer you? 21 A. Well, let's just say I put my name in 22 the hat to live someplace warmer than Michigan. 23 Q. Okay. Got tired of the cold winters? 24 A. Absolutely. 25 Q. Where did you officehere in Dallas? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 25 1 A. At 2651 Manilla Road. 2 Q. Is that on the same compound where the 3 manufacturing plant is located? 4 A. Yes, it is. 5 Q. Is that inside the building? 6 A. The office is a separate building. 7 Q. It's a separate building? 8 A. From the manufacturing facility. 9 Q. You're going to hate me, but I'm going 10 to ask you to just kind of diagram for me how that 11 worked. Can you just diagram for me your office in 12 relationship to the manufacturing plant on Manilla 13 Road? 14 A. I'll give you some other landmarks 15 there, okay? 16 Q. Where were the railroad tracks located 17 in relation, say, to the plant? 18 A. The spur came alongside the plant. The 19 circles are silos containing raw materials. 20 Q. Did you ever see the raw materials 21 being transferred from the box cars into the silos? 22 A. No, because it was done by an automated 23 system through the bottoms. 24 Q. Who was your superior, if that's the 25 right word, at W.R. Grace here in Dallas? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 30 1 A. At what time? 2 Q. When you first got here in 1970. 3 A. The facility was known as Texas 4 Vermiculite Company. It was a subsidiary of W.R. 5 Grace. The local ownership was 25 percent, and it 6 was Mr. Mike Moran, 24 percent, one or the other. 7 Q. Mike Moran was the president of Texas 8 Vermiculite Company? 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. You understood that Texas Vermiculite 11 was a wholly owned subsidiary of W.R. Grace? 12 A. Partially owned. 13 MS. CLARK: He gave us -14 Q. Partially owned. 15 MR. CLARK: I thought he just 16 said Mike Moran owned 25 or so percent. 17 THE WITNESS: That's correct. 18 Q. You received a paycheck on a weekly or 19 monthly basis; is that correct? 20 A. Right. 21 Q. Was the check printed out by W.R. Grace 22 or by Texas Vermiculite? 23 A. Texas Vermiculite Company. 24 Q. What was your position when you came to 25 Dallas in 1970? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 31 1 A. Salesman. Mike kept it simple. 2 Q. You were the salesman. Who were the 3 other salesmen who shared the same office with you? 4 A. At the time, Tom Cheatham. 5 Q. Have you spoken to Tom Cheatham lately? 6 A. Yes. 7 Q. When was the last time you spoke to 8 Tom? 9 A. Monday or Tuesday. 10 Q. Is he still working for True 11 Fireproofing? 12 A. No. 13 Q. Where is heworking now? 14 A. He's not. 15 Q. Did he explain to you why he's no 16 longer working for True Fireproofing? 17 A. They agreed to disagree, apparently. 18 Q. Okay. Howlong had Tom been there 19 before you got there, do you know? 20 A. I'm not real sure. I believe it was 21 either two or four years. 22 Q. Okay. Did you and Tom divide up the 23 territory? 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. What was your territory? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 32 1 A. Basically Dallas east and north, and he 2 went Dallas west and south exclusive of Austin. 3 Q. Did you confine your activities to the 4 Dallas/Fort Worth area alone or did you branch out 5 throughout the State of Texas? 6 A. I never went any farther than the 7 eastern border of Texas, Louisiana. I never went to 8 -- further south to any other major cities such as 9 Austin. I went to Tyler, Longview, Wichita Falls, 10 occasionally Fort Worth but mostly Dallas. 11 Q. As a salesman for W.R. Grace, how did 12 you develop client contacts? 13 A. Everybody that sells construction 14 materials subscribes to reporting services such as 15 F.W. Dodge division of McGraw Hill's Dodge reports. 16 Q. Who were your customers principally in 17 the early '70s? 18 A. Buyers of goods? 19 Q. Yes. 20 A. Some material dealers, some roof deck 21 applicators and plastering contractors, and some 22 were masonry supply houses and/or masonry 23 contractors. 24 Q. Did you ever negotiate thesale of 25 material directly with a building owner or Dallas PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN jj 1 Independent School District or a hospital district? 2 A. No. 3 Q. Was there always a contractor in 4 between that you dealt with? 5 A. At least one. 6 Q. Okay. Do you remember the names of the 7 material dealers with whom you dealt in the early 8 1970s? 9 A. Blue Diamond Company here in Dallas. 10 Q. Are they still inexistence? 11 A. Yes. Builders Supply in Fort Worth. 12 Good question. I'm trying to remember some other 13 names. I can't -- just don't come to mind right 14 now. 15 Q. Did you ever hear of a company called 16 Macatee? 17 A. That was before my time. 18 Q. You also mentioned roof deckers; is 19 that correct? 20 A. Roof deck applicators, people who were 21 subcontractors in the business of applying 22 lightweight insulating concrete roof decks. 23 Q. Do you remember any company names? 24 A. Burn and Treadwell, now defunct. E.R. 25 Keagy Company, now defunct. Hayes Miller Roofing PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 34 1 and Sheet Metal, now defunct. Tyler Roofing and 2 Sheet Metal, no longer in the business. 3 Q. I hope you didn't invest any money in 4 these companies that went out of business. 5 MS. CLARK: Object to the form 6 of the question. 7 A. I did not. 8 Q. Now, you also mentioned plastering 9 contractors, and, of course, I have a particular 10 interest in that as I represent a number of 11 plasterers. 12 Could you please tell me, if you 13 recall, the names of any plastering companies to 14 whom you told sold W.R. Grace products in the early 15 '70s? 16 A. Okay. Storbeck, Gregory & Dillard, 17 McCrory & Company, Triangle Plastering, Fort Worth 18 Plastering, Fred Richards Plastering, Estes & Stout, 19 Carpenter Plastering. That would have been 90 20 percent of them. 21 Q. There may have been a few others but 22 those were the major ones? 23 A. There were some smaller ones in other 24 communities. Cooper Plastering in Tyler would be 25 one. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 35 1 Q. Prior to 1975, Mr. Sheeran, do you 2 remember the estimators or any of the other persons 3 with whom you dealt at Storbeck & Gregory? 4 A. A man named Brook Shirley. He's 5 retired. Jack Dillard, one of the principals. 6 Dutch Storbeck, Louey Gregory, A1 Stenzle. One of 7 the other people that I would occasionally deal with 8 was Lawrence Smith at Storbeck & Gregory. 9 Q. Mr. Sheeran, I'm going to confess that 10 I don't know a whole lot about how you did your 11 business,and I want to ask you when you met with 12 these folks, how did you go about persuading them to 13 buy your material? 14 A. The easiest way and the most effective 15 way was to have the design professionals specify it 16 by name in their project documents which they would 17 put together prior to taking bids for the owner. 18 Q. Does that require you to actually meet 19 with the architects? 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. And did you meet with architects more 22 often than you did with the actual plastering 23 companies? 24 A. Absolutely. 25 Q. Do you remember the names of major PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 36 1 architectural firms with whom you dealt in the early ! 2 '70s in an effort to sell your material? 3 A. I could name some. 4 Q. A couple. 5 A. Some are still in business; some are 6 gone. Harwood K. Smith and Partners. Still here j ij j 1 7 now. George Dahl, D-a-h-1, and Associates, Tom 8 Stanley & Associates, Rosco D. Whitt & Associates. 9 If you'd look at the list of architects in the 10 Dallas 1972 yellow pages, every one of them was our 11 contact. 12 Q. Sure. In the architectural plan or 13 specification, your mission was to have them 14 actually enumerate or set forth a Zonolite Monokote 15 product or Zonolite acoustic product; is that 16 correct? 17 A. Correct. 18 Q. In the building design and 19 specifications, were there generally standard 20 language that Monokote material can be used or 21 something equivalent? 22 A. Architects always like to put in 23 something to the effect that. Orarchitect approved 24 equal. 25 Q. Okay. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 37 i 1 A. They can control it better that way. 2 If they say or equal, it's very ambiguous. 3 Q. Who were -- let me see if I can word 4 this right. What equivalent fireproofing products 5 were available in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in the 6 1970s? 7 A. The Cafco product was available by the 8 same name, Blazeshield. 9 Q. How about Heat Shield? 10 A. I believe that was primarily an 11 insulating product. 12 Q. Okay. I'm sorry to interrupt. 13 A. A good one that was available was 14 Asbestos Spray. 15 Q. When you say a good one, why did your 16 eyes light up? 17 A. People just flip out when they hear 18 that name. 19 Q. Asbestos Spray? 20 A. Uh-huh. 21 Q. They didn't flip out then? Well, did 22 they flip out in the early '70s when they heard 23 Asbestos Spray? 24 A. No, those peoplesold alot ofproduct. 25 Q. Okay. Did United States Gypsum also PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 3S manufacture and market an equivalent fireproofing material? A. I believe they ceased around 1970, '69, ' 70 . Q. How about United States Gypsum? A. You just mentioned that. National Gypsum is the other one. Q. I'm sorry. How about National Gypsum? A. I think they got out of the business about the same time. Q. Did U.S. Mineral have an office here in Dallas? A. No. Q. Their office was in Houston? A. I believe that's correct. Q. How about Asbestos Spray, did they have an office here in Dallas? A. No. Q. As far as you know, is W.R. Grace the only company who had an office in Dallas? A. At what time? Q. During the early 1970s. A. No, United States Gypsum always had an office. Q. Are you aware of any other PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 39 1 manufacturing plants besides W.R. Grace which 2 produced asbestos-containing acoustical plasters or 3 fireproofing materials? 4 A. There were several licensee 5 corporations around the company that produced 6 Monokote under license. 7 Q. How about in the Dallas area, were 8 there any other competitors? 9 A. Not producing. 10 Q. Okay. Were you aware that there were 11 other manufacturing plants that W.R. Grace owned or 12 operated in Texas during that time period? 13 A. No. 14 Q. Did you know they had a plant in San 15 Antonio? 16 A. There was a Texas Vermiculite plant in 17 Austin, but it did not produce fireproofing 18 products. 19 Q. What did they produce, do you know? 20 A. Strictly lightweight aggregate 21 vermiculite for insulating concrete roof decks and 22 for masonry insulation. 23 Q. Was there also a plant in Houston? 24 A. A licensee plant. 25 Q. When you say a licensee plant, is that PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 40 1 where the actual manufacturing plant has one name 2 but they're bagging the material using the Zonolite 3 trade name? 4 A. Correct. 5 Q. So the plant in San Antonio and Houston 6 and Dallas, to your knowledge, produced a product 7 that was packaged in bags which bore the trade name 8 or logo Zonolite? 9 A. Correct. 10 Q. Okay. Did the bag also have W.R. Grace 11 on the bottom of it written on it? 12 A. I don't recall. 13 Q. Okay. Do you know what was 14 manufactured down in Houston at that plant in the 15 early '70s? 16 A. Monokote 3 was produced in Houston. 17 The company is still there. It's Vermiculite 18 Products Company, Inc. 19 Q. Do you know therelationship -- the 20 corporate or business relationship between 21 Vermiculite Company and W.R. Grace in Houston? 22 A. Grace has no ownership. It's locally 23 owned. 24 Q. At present? 25 A. Always was. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 41 1 Q. On what facts or information do you 2 base that? 3 A. I've seen their license agreement. 4 Q. You've seen it? 5 A. (Witness nods head.) 6 Q. Now, you said you dealt with folks like 7 A1 Stenzle and Lawrence Smith. How did you deal 8 with these people? 9 A. A1 Stenzle was an estimator, and he 10 would want to know the intricate details of the 11 assembly of the building, everything that was 12 germane to making a proper estimate of the volume of 13 materials required to accomplish the fireproofing. 14 Q. Okay. Do you recall that the Storbeck, 15 Gregory & Dillard Company had a warehouse on site? 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. Did you actually sell MK-3 to them, 18 bags of it that came on a truck? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. Did they store the MK-3 in their 21 warehouses? 22 A. Usually not. 23 Q. Why didn't they, do you know? 24 A. It would usually be shipped to a 25 j obsite. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 1 q. Okay. How frequently do you think you 2 met with people over at Storbeck & Gregory in the 3 early '70s in your effort to sell MK-3? 4 A. Weekly. 5 Q. Would the same be true for McCrory & 6 Company? 7 A. Yes. 8 Q. Triangle? 9 A. Not as frequently. 10 Q. Estes & Stout? 11 A. Probably a couple oftimes a month. 12 Q. How about Carpenter, Joe Carpenter? 13 A. Probably weekly. 14 Q. Now, could youexplain tome why you 15 would meet with these people on a weekly basis if 16 they knew you and knew your phone? Couldn't they 17 just call you up and ask for you to deliver 18 material? Why did you have to go out there? 19 A. Almost every time to goover the 20 details of the particular project that we're bidding 21 for that week. They were all different. No two 22 were alike. 23 Q. So when the companylikeStorbeck & 24 Gregory submitted a bid, you wanted them to put in 25 their specification a Monokote or Zonolite product? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 43 1 A. Well, it wasn't their specification. 2 The specifications are written by the design 3 professional. They were merely bidding it as a 4 subcontractor to a prime contractor. j ! i! j 5 Q. Okay. What was your dream come true 6 when you met with these people? What was your final 7 objective as a sales person for W.R. Grace? 8 A. Storbeck & Gregory and the other firms 9 I named were competitors, and, of course, my object 10 was to get the order from that firm which wound up 11 with the subcontract that involved fireproofing 12 materials. 13 Q. At that time when Storbeck & Gregory 14 was submitting a bid on, let's say, fireproofing for 15 a downtown skyscraper down here in Dallas, what 16 fireproofing products were available to that 17 company, do you know? 18 A. At one point in time, the product from 19 National Gypsum and U.S. Gypsum was available as 20 well as the Monokote product and also the Cafco 21 product was available and another manufacturer or 22 two of sprayed mineral fiber thing which had no 23 representation locally. 24 Q. Do you know the names of any of the 25 sales reps for Cafco or Asbestos Spray? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 44 1 A. Asbestos Spray was represented by a 2 gentleman named Burt Levine who came to town a 3 couple times a year from New Jersey. I don't know 4 if he's still alive. 5 Q. He came in from New Jersey? 6 A. (Witness nods head.) 7 Q. Did he fair any better than you did 8 with the local boys? 9 A. He got some work. 10 Q. Was there ever an occasion when you 11 were walking in the hallway at Storbeck & Gregory 12 and he was walking out? 13 A. I don't think so. 14 Q. How about any other rep from any other 15 company? 16 A. Hobson Harel for Cafco. At one time 17 Bill Dunn -- the Dunn Company represented Cafco. 18 Q. Did you ever get in any arguments with 19 any of these other reps over your territory or any, 20 what you perceived to be, shady dealings? 21 A. No, just argue about who was going to 22 pay the dinner bill. 23 Q. You guys went to lunch a lot? 24 A. Sure. 25 Q. Pretty good friends? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 45 1 A. Reasonably so. 2 Q. Did you take these estimators and other 3 people working for the various plastering 4 contractors like Storbeck & Gregory, did you take 5 them out to lunch? 6 A. Regularly. 7 Q. Was that a method that you employed in 8 order to keep relations and rapport between yourself 9 and the plastering contractors? 10 A. Well, that and it was a good time to 11 catch up on what was going on. 12 Q. Did you fell like you really had any 13 serious competition in the early 1970s from any 14 other company? 15 A. Yes, from the Cafco product. 16 Q. Their rep was down in Houston; is that 17 right? 18 A. I think he still is. 19 Q. Would he have to fly up or drive up in 20 order to meet with the customer? 21 A. They would have an independent sales 22 rep in Dallas at that time. One was Dunn and later 23 was Hobson Harel, and they had a company agent in 24 most recent years, an employee. 25 Q. What was the price of a bag of MK-3 in PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 46 1 the early '70s? 2 A. I don't swear to it but I would say 3 anywhere from $2.50 to $4. 4 Q. Did you give a volume discount? 5 A. No. 6 Q. Do you know what the bag of an 7 equivalent Cafco product cost at the same time? 8 A. Very competitive on a volumetric basis, 9 probably identical per board foot or cubic foot, 10 however you want to measure it. 11 Q. How aboutAsbestos Spray? 12 A. The same. 13 Q. What, in your mind, was the biggest 14 motivating factor for the customer in purchasing a 15 W.R. Grace versus a Cafco or Asbestos Spray product? 16 A. Service. 17 Q. What would fall into the category of 18 service? 19 A. I'll give you a scenario. A project 20 would be under design by a local architect, who 21 usually didn't know enough to be any more than 22 dangerous as far as writing the specifications to 23 fit the details of a building, those details as 24 designed by the structural engineer for steel framed 25 buildings. So we'd provide the architect with free PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 47 1 consulting, in effect, help him select design 2 numbers as published by Underwriters Laboratories, 3 which were the most cost effective for his project, 4 and I would relay -- or relate these details as they 5 applied to that particular project to the 6 subcontractor, plastering contractors who were 7 bidding it. Like I said, everyone was different. 8 Q. As far as you know, the fact that these 9 materials had asbestos in them, that in itself 10 wasn't the prime motivation for customers wanting to 11 buy the product? 12 A. No. 13 Q. Do you have any knowledge whether MK-3 14 contained any less or any more asbestos in it than 15 Cafco Blazeshield or Asbestos Spray? 16 A. I'm certain that it was considerably 17 less. 18 Q. What makes you so certain about that? 19 A. I've seen analyses performed by 20 qualified laboratories many, many times in the last 21 20 years. 22 Q. In the early 1970s, did you see any 23 reports from laboratories which measured the 24 asbestos content in Cafco? 25 A. No. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 48 1 Q. Did you see anything like that for 2 Asbestos Spray? 3 A. More recently. 4 Q. Not in the early '70s? 5 A. No. 6 Q. When do you understand that asbestos 7 was ordered by the federal government to be removed 8 from these fireproofing products? 9 A. Mid to late '72. 10 Q. Did you ever see any reports from W.R. 11 Grace in which they assessed the percentage of 12 asbestos by volume or by weight in bags of MK-3? 13 A. At what time? 14 Q. Well, obviously, before they took the 15 asbestos out. 16 A. No. 17 Q. Did you see anything like that after 18 they took the asbestos out? 19 A. Not published by Grace. 20 Q. What did you understand to be the 21 asbestos content in the bags of MK-3? 22 A. Ten to 12 percent. 23 Q. What's that based on? 24 A. Volume. 25 Q. Where did you find that information? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 1 A. Again, fairly recently from different 2 laboratories that would analyze it in regard to 3 abatement. 4 Q. Okay. So prior to 1972, you didn't 5 appreciate the full asbestos percentage in the bags 6 of MK-3? 7 A. I would say I was not sure, but I knew 8 there were some in there. 9 Q. You knew that the material was an 10 asbestos-containing material, but you didn't know 11 what the allocation was? 12 A. I was aware it was not a major 13 ingredient. 14 Q. I'm going to ask you about this plant. 15 MS. CLARK: Roger, can we take a 16 little break here? 17 MR. WORTHINGTON: Sure. 18 (Recess taken.) 19 MR. WORTHINGTON: For the 20 record, we'll mark as Plaintiff's 21 Exhibit No. 1 the deposition notice and 22 all the attachments, and we'll mark as 23 Plaintiffs Exhibit No. 2 the documents 24 produced by Mr. Sheeran. 25 (Deposition Exhibit 2 marked for identification.) PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 50 1 2 Q. Mr. Sheeran, would you report every 3 morning to your office on Manilla Road before going 4 out? 5 A. Not every morning. 6 Q. How often, on a weekly basis, would you 7 report to your office in the early 1970s? 8 A. At that time, probably three out of 9 five days. 10 Q. Okay. Would you generally stay there 11 all day or were you making a lot of customer calls? 12 A. No, I would stay very little. 13 Q. When you parked your car there at the 14 parking lot, did you ever see any boxcars over here 15 at the plant? 16 A. Usually every time. 17 Q. How frequently would boxcars be present 18 at the plant? 19 A. All the time. 20 Q. Do you know -- 21 A. They were not boxcars but hopper cars 22 for carrying bulk goods. 23 Q. What was being carried in the hopper 24 cars in the early '70s? 25 A. The vermiculite ore from the mine PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN s1 1 sites. 2 Q. Did you understand that inside the 3 plant in the manufacturing process raw asbestos 4 fibers were added to the expanded vermiculite ore? 5 A. Yes. 6 Q. Do you know where the company purchased 7 the raw asbestos fiber? 8 A. I believe it was from Thetford Mines 9 Ontario -- or Quebec, excuse me. 10 Q. Did they also purchase raw asbestos 11 fiber from Johns-Manville? 12 A. I believe so. 13 Q. Who was in charge of purchasing the raw 14 asbestos? 15 A. At that time, Bob Junker. 16 Q. Bob Junker. Did you ever talk to him 17 in the early '70s about why he bought the asbestos 18 and what he did with it? 19 A. No, not really. 20 Q. For example, did you ever walk inside 21 the plant and actually feel the fibers in your own 22 hands? 23 A. Sure. 24 Q. What did it feel like? 25 A. Slippery, like talcum. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 52 1 Q. Were you curious about it? Was it 2 interesting to you? 3 A. No more than any of the other 4 materials. 5 Q. Did you see where they stored the 6 asbestos inside the plant? 7 A. I couldn't state where it was stored. 8 Q. Did you see the asbestos in the bags? 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. Did you ever see a mixer man pour the 11 asbestos from the bags into the blender? 12 A. Probably. 13 Q. Doesn't stand out as something that you 14 remember? 15 A. No, no, no. It's not my favorite 16 place. It was noisy and hot and dusty. 17 Q. Did you walk in there with your suit 18 and tie on? 19 A. Not if I could help it. 20 Q. How frequently would you walk inside 21 the plant? 22 A. Quite infrequently. 23 Q. Why would you go in there anyway? 24 A. To discuss some upcoming demands with 25 the plant manager most likely. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 53 1 Q. Now, you said it was dusty. Where 2 inside the plant was it most dusty? 3 A. Everything was dusty inside the plant. 4 It's hard to say which would be the most dusty area. 5 Q. Well, for example, the blender area 6 where the raw asbestos was dumped into the blender, 7 was it dusty in that area? 8 A. Yes, because gypsum was dumped at some 9 point. 10 Q. Gypsum was a pinkish color, wasn't it? 11 A. White to pink. It would vary. 12 Q. It was white to pink, and asbestos was 13 white? 14 A. Gray. 15 Q. Gray? 16 A. To white. 17 Q. And the gypsum dust or pellets or what 18 have you, they were heavier than the asbestos fiber; 19 is that right? 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. So the gypsum material would fall to 22 the ground a lot sooner than the asbestos fiber? 23 A. I would have to say yes. 24 Q. Could you ever see the asbestos fibers 25 floating up in the air? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 54 1 A. I don't recall specifically seeing 2 that. 3 Q. Did you ever see any asbestos fibers 4 hanging from the rafters or the ceiling or the roof? 5 A. I couldn't identify that it was 6 asbestos fibers. 7 Q. Could you see any dirt or grit? 8 A. Sure. 9 Q. Did they ever do any vacuuming up on 10 the ceilings that you remember in the early '70s? 11 A. Somebody was always vacuuming 12 something. 13 Q. The floor or the ceiling? 14 A. Both. 15 Q. Do you know who was doing that? 16 A. Somebody directed by the plant manager, 17 one of the employees. 18 Q. Who was the plant manager in the early 19 '70s? 20 A. Curtis Gibson. 21 Q. What were his responsibilities? 22 A. Curtis did just about everything. 23 Q. Who was in charge of maintaining a safe 24 work place? 25 A. I would say Curt. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 55 1 q. Do you know if the company implemented 2 any kind of medical safety screening program where 3 they took annual chest x-rays or anything like that 4 in the early '70s? 5 A. I don't recall. 6 Q. Is that something you would have known? 7 A. Probably. 8 Q. How many employees wereworking inside 9 the W.R. Grace plant on Manilla Road before 1973? 10 A. Just take a guess and say less than 20. 11 Q. Okay. How many workers were on the 12 assembly line? 13 A. Well, there was no assembly line, per 14 se. 15 Q. It was a bad word. On the 16 manufacturing train, or whatever, how many people 17 were working directly with the bagging and 18 processing of the vermiculite into a final product? 19 A. As far as the fireproofing Monokote 20 product is concerned, probably a total of four or 21 five. Different, more automated equipment was added 22 from time to time. 23 Q. Before 1973, did the ventilation system 24 in that plant consist of a very large fan up in the 25 ceiling or up in the roof or were there anything PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 56 1 else? 2 A. I can't say. Doors were always open. 3 Q. Okay. From the floor, let's say, where 4 the blender was to the top of the roof, could you 5 approximate how many feet that was? 6 A. 20 to 25 feet. 7 Q. Where you parked your car, did you ever 8 look over at the plant when they were making 9 Monokote and see any dust coming out of the ceiling, 10 out of the roof tops? 11 A. There would be dust from time to time 12 when they were unloading boxcars, or as I recall, it 13 was an indicator that they needed to change bags in 14 the baghouse apparatus. 15 Q. The baghouse wasn't put in until after 16 '73, wasn't it? 17 A. I don't know. I don't recall. 18 Q. Do you recall that there were homes 19 adjacent to the plant, residential homes? 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. Did you ever see children playing in 22 the streets? 23 A. I'm sure I have. 24 Q. Children on bicycles? 25 A. Yes. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 57 1 Q. Pulling pigtails, doing children-type 2 things? 3 A. Uh-huh, yes. 4 Q. Do you believe that they were also 5 exposed to dust coining from the plant? 6 MS. CLARK: I object to the form 7 of the question. I think that would 8 call for speculation from this witness, 9 and there's been no foundation to 10 establish that he would be able to make 11 that determination. 12 Q. How far was your car from the plant 13 when you parked it at the office? 14 A. Usually on the east side of the 15 building. 16 Q. On this side (indicating)? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. 19 window? Did you ever get a film of dust on your 20 A. Usually when they were manufacturing 21 perlite aggregate for various purposes, it tended to 22 produce a lot of dust. 23 Q. How about the Zono-Coustic, when they 24 were making the Zono-Coustic? 25 A. I don't know. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 58 1 Q. Okay. 2 A. I could identify the perlite dust 3 because it was the whitest material. 4 Q. To your knowledge, did they add 5 asbestos to the perlite materials? 6 A. I don't believe so. 7 Q. But you Could be wrong, right? 8 A. Yes. 9 Q. The perlite materials, would that 10 include Perlcoustic, Perltex Fog, Perltex Poly, 11 Perltex Super-40, anything like that? 12 A. I'm not familiar with any of the 13 perlite products. They were of little or no 14 consequence. 15 Q. Okay. 16 A. Except for aggregate for insulating 17 concrete roof decks. 18 Q. In the early '70s when you had occasion 19 to walk inside the plant and see the men 20 manufacturing MK-3, did you ever see anyone wearing 21 dust masks? 22 A. I don't recall. 23 Q. Did you ever seeCurtis Gibson wearing 24 a dust mask? 25 A. I doubt it in those days. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 59 1 Q. In the early '70s, do you know if the 2 plant ever had any regular safety meetings? 3 A. I don't know. 4 Q. Do you know whether the plant ever 5 posted bulletins in the work room or lunch room 6 notifying people to beware of asbestos? 7 A. I don't recall. 8 Q. Did you have authority to ask Gibson to 9 cease making one product and start making another 10 product because you had a big order? 11 A. That's the kind of thing we would talk 12 about, yes. 13 Q. Could the plant simultaneously 14 manufacture Zono-Coustic and MK-3? 15 A. I don't believe it could. 16 Q. Okay. What types of products could the 17 plant simultaneously manufacture? 18 A. It could manufacture Monokote 19 fireproofing materials, the aggregate for roof deck 20 for the customers and I believe they could also 21 produce some of the soil products simultaneously. 22 Q. To your knowledge, did they add 23 asbestos tothe soil products? 24 A. I don't know. 25 Q. Okay. Now, where inside the plant was PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 60 1 the material actually emptied into a bag? 2 A. On this plan, it would be the northwest 3 corner of the building. 4 Q. How was the material actually emptied 5 into the bag? Can you describe that for me, please? 6 A. There was a platform where the batching 7 took place, and a man or two would introduce the 8 gypsum, a couple of other insignificant products for 9 air entraining. At that point, the asbestos was put 10 in. The vermiculite was fed through an overhead 11 pipe system. So the stuff in the bags was primarily 12 gypsum. 13 Q. Did a man, by hand, shovel the material 14 into the bag or was that done automatically? 15 A. That was done by a bagging machine -16 Q. Okay. 17 A. -- which was a series of screws and 18 scales and... 19 Q. Did you ever see the bags of MK-3 in 20 the early '70s? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. How long were the bags? Do you 23 remember how many feet? 24 A. They were approximately two and a half 25 cubic feet in volume and still are. The height was PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 61 1 30 inches, thereabouts. 2 Q. Did you ever hoist one of those bags 3 filled with product over your shoulder? 4 A. Many times. 5 Q. How much did it weigh? 6 A. 48 to 50 pounds, as high as 52 pounds 7 in those days. 8 Q. Why would you have done this many 9 times? 10 A. Spot-check the weight of the bags on 11 the jobsite, check the production numbers. 12 Q. Did one of those bags ever burst while 13 you were carrying it? 14 A. Probably. 15 Q. Did it get dust all your clothing? 16 A. It's one of those products where if you 17 have to be associated with you can't avoid getting 18 covered with the stuff. 19 Q. Was there a man whose job was to 20 operate the bagging equipment? 21 A. Probably several. 22 Q. Okay. During the process of emptying 23 the material or filling up the bags, did that 24 process generate dust? 25 A. Yes, it had to to some degree. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 62 1 Q. In the course of your employment at 2 Grace, did you ever have occasion to visit jobsites 3 where you actually saw the MK-3 being applied or 4 mixed or prepared? 5 A. Usually one day a week. 6 Q. Okay. Do you remember any of the names 7 of any of the laborers or plasterers who actually 8 applied the material? 9 A . A few. 10 Q. For example, Lawrence Smith -- 11 A. Lawrence -- 12 Q. -- did you ever see him use it? 13 A. -- would be one, yes. 14 Q. How about Larry Gibson? 15 A. Yes. 16 Q. How about A1 Stenzle? 17 A. A1 was never on site, very rarely. 18 Q. In the later years, in the '70s, you 19 didn't see him before 1970 because that's when you 20 came to work? 21 A. Uh-huh, correct. 22 Q. Did you ever have occasion to witness 23 any of these folks actually emptying the bags of 48, 24 50 pound bags of MK-3 into a hopper? 25 A. Yes. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 63 1 Q. Did that process generate clouds of 2 dust? 3 A. Yes, it would. 4 Q. And the dust was visible to your eyes? 5 A. Absolutely. 6 Q. Did the quantity of dust, according to 7 your recollection, differ between the man in the 8 field emptying the bags and the man in the mill who 9 was pouring the asbestos contaminated materials into 10 the bags? 11 MS. CLARK: I object to the form 12 of the question. It calls for 13 speculation of this witness, and 14 there's insufficient predicate 15 foundation to establish that he could 16 judge the amount of dust that might be 17 created in different work sites. 18 A. I had spent more time on jobsites than 19 in the plant, and the man who emptied the bags into 20 the mixer hopper was usually pretty dusty. 21 Q. Okay. Well, you've testified that 22 walking around the plant was pretty dusty, and you 23 did your best to avoid the dust in the plant; is 24 that right? 25 A. Sure. Just didn't want to sit on PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 64 1 anything. 2 Q. Do you believe that the man who was 3 emptying the bags of MK-3 into a hopper was exposed 4 to more dust than the people working inside the 5 plant? 6 MS. CLARK: Same objection that 7 I made before. 8 Q. Based on your knowledge and your 9 recollection. 10 A. I'd say that the odds are pretty good 11 that he was in a dustier environment than the people 12 in the plant, unless the wind was blowing the other 13 way. 14 Q. A lot of times the MK-3 was mixed 15 indoors; isn't that correct? 16 A. No, it was always out of doors. 17 Q. I want to ask you about the bag. You 18 said that the plant was Texas Vermiculite plant yet 19 the bags themselves bore the logo Zonolite Monokote; 20 isn't that correct? 21 A. Correct. 22 Q. And at the very bottom of the bag there 23 was a little emblem that said W.R. Grace? 24 A. That I don't recall, but remembering 25 how Mike Moran was about those type of things. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 65 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 chances are there was no Grace name on the bag if he ; had anything to do with it. Q. Now, why would Mike Moran not want to have W.R. Grace logo on the product, do you know? A. It was an ego trip for him. That's all. Q. Did he have his own name on there? A. No, but he started the company. Q. He wanted more than the 25-percent cut Grace was giving him? A. Oh, yes. Q. Was that plant pretty much operating around the clock in the early '70s? A. Sometimes. Q. More often than not? A. In the early '70s, Iwould than often. say more not Q. Okay. There was a warehouse on the premises, was there not? A. Yes. Q. Do you recall whether that warehouse was ever stacked to the ceiling with MK-3? MS. CLARK: I object to the form of the question. It's leading. A. The product was normally sent right out PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 66 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 to a jobsite on a trailer loaded at the bagging point. Q. Okay. So, basically, you had enough contracts, enough business where you never really had to store the MK-3 on the plant very long; isn't that right? A. Correct. It also has a shelf life. Q. Okay. On those bags in the early '70s, you never saw any warning label on there, did you? A. I don't recall it. Q. Okay. And inside the plant, you never saw a notice that advised workers that asbestos exposure could be hazardous to one's health? A. I don't recall seeing that. Q. And you never saw any notice that exposure to asbestos could cause lung cancer? A. I don't remember. Q. You never saw anything, any notice or bulletin that exposure to asbestos could cause mesothelioma? sign. A. I don't recall seeing that word on a Q. Do you recall whether Grace ever sent notice to any of the persons who lived around the plant in the homes adjacent to the plant that they PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 67 1 ought to avoid the inhalation of dust from the 2 plant? 3 A. Moran would never do that. 4 Q. Why wouldn't he ever notify the people 5 about a health hazard? 6 A. He was a person that would never rock 7 the boat, so to speak. 8 Q. He didn't want to invite public 9 scrutiny or -- 10 MS. CLARK: Object to the 11 form -- 12 Q. -- controversy? 13 MS. CLARK: Object to the form 14 of the question. That calls for 15 speculation from this witness about 16 what a different person might have 17 thought or wanted to do. 18 Q. Moran's a friend of yours, isn't he? 19 A. After a fashion. He'd fire me 20 regularly. 21 Q. But he'd hire you back, wouldn't he? 22 A. Oh, yeah. He'd always give you a bonus 23 and hire you back. 24 Q. Did you get to know the man pretty 25 well? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 63 1 A. Sure. 2 Q. Kind of knew what made him tick? 3 MS. CLARK: Object. I think 4 that calls for speculation of what 5 made the person tick. I don't think 6 this man is a psychiatrist or 7 psychologist or probably would want to 8 give an opinion about what makes 9 somebody tick. 10 Q. I think you know what I mean, don't 11 you, Mr. Sheeran? 12 A. I knew his witticisms or his traits 13 fairly well, yeah. 14 Q. Based on your friendship and your 15 professional relationship with Mr. Moran, do you 16 believe that if he had known that asbestos did pose 17 a health hazard to persons exposed to dust that he 18 still wouldn't have warned the people living next to 19 the plant? 20 MS. CLARK: I object to the form 21 of that question. I think that's sheer 22 speculation about what a person would 23 have done had he known certain facts, 24 and I don't think that this individual 25 witness is qualified to give that PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 69 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 opinion. A. I believe he would have done something. Q. Okay. The plant did not have a full-time or even a part-time safety inspector; isn't that right? A. Not by that name. Q. Did they hire an industrial hygienist? A. I don't know. Q. When you were working for W.R. Grace in the early '70s, do you have any knowledge that they ever hired a consultant to come into the plant to take measurements of the dust in the air? A. I don't know. Q. Did you ever see any memoranda or any reports generated by W.R. Grace regarding the level of asbestos contamination inside the plant? A. I never saw that. Q. Did you receive correspondence from W.R. Grace, the headquarters, regarding material safety? A. Prior to '73, I don't recall. Q. Who are your contact men or people at headquarters for W.R. Grace? A. An occasional visitor would come who would give -- a technical guy who gives assistance PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 1 on equipment for either the furnaces or -- most 2 normally the furnace operations for expanding 3 vermiculite. A fellow named Fred Eton would come 4 once in awhile. 5 Q. Fred Eton? 6 A. Uh-huh. Once in awhile a vice 7 president would come, and we'd all visit about our 8 business. His name was Bruce Williams. 9 Q. How about a Mr. Peter Kostick? 10 A. I don't know him. 11 Q. How about a Mr. Taggert? 12 A. Probably met him once or twice. 13 Q. Do you know what his job was for W.R. 14 Grace? 15 A. No. 16 Q. Do you know when you met him? 17 A. No. 18 Q. How about Mr. Dugan? 19 A. Doesn't sound familiar. 20 Q. Did you mention W.L. Taggert? 21 A. I believe I met him. 22 Q. You met him? Do you know what his job 23 title was, or do you know what his job duties were? 24 A. I don't recall. 25 Q. How about Mr. R.W. Sterrett, did you PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 71 1 know him? 2 A. Yes . 3 Q. When did you first meet Mr. Sterrett? 4 A. 1966 . 5 Q. What was your relationship with Mr. 6 Sterrett? 7 A. It was very rare and usually just at a 8 sales meeting of some kind. 9 Q. How often would you attend sales 10 meetings? 11 A. A couple times a year. 12 Q. Where would these meetings be held? 13 A. All over the U.S. 14 Q. Did you attend these every year since 15 1966? 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. I'm going to ask you about those 18 meetings in 1966 and onward in a few minutes, but I 19 want to finish up with this, okay? 20 By the way, do you have knowledge of 21 how many employees at the W.R. Grace plant on 22 Manilla Road have worked at the plant for at least 23 20 years? 24 A. Yes. Curt Gibson would be one and 25 James Bennett would be another. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 1 72 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 know? Q. Does Mr. Bennett live in Dallas, do you A. I believe he lives in Duncanville. Q. How old is Mr. Bennett? A. I'm quite sure he's 52. Q. He's 52 years old? A. Yeah. Q. Why are you quite sure about that? A. I think our birthdays are a week apart or something like that. Q. Bennett? When was the last time you spoke to Mr. A. Most likely April or May this year. Q. Did you and Mr. Bennett ever visit about any asbestos-related health problems he may be having? A. I don't think so. Q. Did he ever tell you that he'd been diagnosed with any kind of lung disease? A. I believe his wife told me that. Q. Did you ever go through a medical examination that W.R. Grace paid for to determine whether or not you had any disease? A. No. Q. Do you know anyone who has gone through PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 73 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that process besides Curt Gibson? A. I would have to assume James Bennett has . Q. What was James Bennett's job at W.R. Grace? A. Probably maintenance. Q. Do you know when he started working there at that plant? A. No, I don't. Q. Was it in the '60s do you think? A. I think it was. Q. Has he retired? A. I don't know. Q. Do you know if he's disabled? A. I don't MS. CLARK: Object to the form of the question. That would call for speculation from this individual. I don't think he can give a medical opinion. Q. Do you know whether he's able to work? A. I believe so. I believe he is working. Q. Mr. Sheeran, in the deposition notice which I sent to you I attached as Exhibit A a list of products manufactured by W.R. Grace & Company. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 74 1 What I'd like for you to do, please, is 2 go through this list and put an X next to each 3 product that was manufactured here in Dallas, Texas. 4 A. I can name the ones with which I am 5 familiar real quickly. I don't understand. There's 6 two listed as Zonolite Monokote 5 back and Zonolite 7 Monokote 5 front. There was only one Monokote 5 8 that I was aware, so I'll put a big X there. That's 9 about it. 10 Q. So you've marked on Exhibit A of the 11 deposition notice Zonolite Acoustical 12 Plastic/Plaster, Zonolite Monokote MK-3, Zonolite 13 Monokote 5 and Zonolite Plaster? 14 A. Correct. 15 Q. Also on this list there are various 16 Zono-Coustic materials. Do you recall whether 17 those 18 A. They were pretty well out of the 19 picture when I came. 20 Q. But you are aware of Zono-Coustic? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q And you've sold that before? 23 A. No, I never sold any of it. 24 Q. You never sold any in Detroit? 25 A. About one project here in town. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 75 1 Q. But you sold Zono-Coustic in Detroit, 2 so you're familiar with the material? 3 A. I'm familiar with it. Again, it was on 4 the way out, and I didn't have but very little, if 5 anything, to do with it. 6 Q. This list was generated by a company 7 called Owens-Corning Fiberglas, and they've 8 represented that they obtained the information from 9 interrogatories and various other sources to verify 10 the information on this list. On this list for 11 Zonolite Acoustical Plaster, they've indicated that 12 the product was made from 1945 to 1972 and that it 13 contained 20 percent asbestos and it was chrysotile. 14 Do you have any reason to dispute the 15 asbestos percentage of that product? 16 MS. CLARK: Pardon me. I want 17 to object to the form of the question. 18 I think that the basis is insufficient 19 to support this document. The fact 2 0 that it was done by third parties from 21 even farther removed documents, I don't 22 think that the authenticity of the 23 document has been proved up or that the 24 information contained is of such 25 quality, from what you've said, to be PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 76 1 relied upon by this witness or anyone 2 else. 3 Q. You can go ahead and answer. 4 MS. CLARK: I think it would 5 call for speculation on the part of 6 this witness. 7 A. Only in recent years have I seen as a 8 result of laboratory checking materials suspicious, 9 you know, abatement projects have I seen any numbers 10 about asbestos content of acoustical plaster. 11 Q. All right. Just so I understand what 12 you've said. You believe and you have knowledge 13 that the W.R. Grace plant here in Dallas from 1970 14 to some date manufactured Zonolite Acoustical 15 Plaster, Zonolite Monokote MK-3, Zonolite Monokote 5 16 and Zonolite Plaster; is that right? 17 A. Correct. 18 Q. Do you know when the company ceased 19 manufacturing Zonolite Acoustical Plaster here at 20 the Dallas plant? 21 A. I would say sometime in '72. 22 Q. How about Zonolite MK-3? 23 A. In June of '73. 24 Q. Are they still making Zonolite MK-5? 25 A. No. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 77 1 Q. When did they stop making that? 2 A. Phased it out beginning in '88. 3 Q. Do you know why they did that? 4 A. They committed to producing an MK-6 5 product with a different technology. 6 Q. Okay. Generally, how was business in 7 the early '70s? Were you staying busy? 8 A. Yes,business was good. 9 Q. Was it booming? 10 MS. CLARK: Object to the form 11 of the question. That's a vague term. 12 Q. Was it booming? 13 MR. WORTHINGTON: You can 14 obj ect. 15 MS. CLARK: Sameobjection. 16 A. No, it was steady. 17 Q. Well, was there a lot ofconstruction 18 going on downtown? 19 A. Not like later years. 20 Q. Looking downtown from where you're 21 sitting here, there's a large cluster of buildings. 22 Can you, from where you're sitting right now, 23 identify any of the buildings that were being 24 erected in the early '70s? 25 A. Yes. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 78 1 Q. What are those buildings? 2 A. One that is now known as Renaissance 3 Tower began in '71. 2001 Bryan Street which is 4 1972. One called Main Tower across the street from 5 One Main Place. Two Turtle Creek. Business was 6 steady but it wasn't what I would call booming. 7 There were probably a major building or two per year 8 at that time. 9 Q. There was enough business to keep two 10 W.R. Grace salesmen employed full time, you and Tom 11 Cheatham? 12 A. Yeah, but we spent a lot of time with 13 our roof deck business, too. 14 Q. I'd like to ask you about Deposition 15 Exhibit No. 2, the documents which you brought with 16 you to the deposition this morning. 17 Could you describe generally what the 18 significance of this document is, what it means? 19 A. It's a list of projects that have 20 Monokote fireproofing incorporated in them by one 21 name and number designation or another. 22 Q. Could you please go through this list, 23 and we can go off the record if you'd like so you 24 can take your time, and put an X next to every 25 building to which Monokote MK-3 was applied? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 79 1 A. On the front page, all those that are 2 not highlighted in yellow. 3 Q. Unfortunately, this is not highlighted, 4 so could you go ahead and do that? Why don't you go 5 ahead and do it with your own X. 6 A. Actually the ones I've highlighted, 7 these are the ones that I'm aware are not asbestos 8 on this list. 9 Q. Okay. 10 MS. CLARK: So you're marking 11 the ones that on your list are 12 highlighted? 13 THE WITNESS: Correct. 14 MS. CLARK: And the ones that 15 are highlighted do not contain asbestos 16 to the best of your knowledge? 17 THE WITNESS: That's correct. 18 Q. Okay. Let's talk about your personal 19 knowledge before I ask you about what the 20 designation is, whether it's asbestos or nonasbestos 21 to your knowledge. 22 First of all, with respect to all of 23 the buildings on this list, did you personally sell 24 Monokote products to the architect firm that 25 designed the building? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 80 1 A. Yes. 2 Q. You personally, not TomCheatham but 3 you? 4 A. Probably fifty-fifty. 5 Q. Okay. Now, are all these buildings on 6 the first page, were they erected between 1972 and 7 '78? 8 A. Best of my knowledge, yes. 9 Q. Okay. And have you made an X on 10 Exhibit No. 2 next to the buildings that you believe 11 did not contain MK-3? 12 A. Correct. 13 Q. Okay. But what product -- what 14 Monokote product did you sell for use in the 15 buildings which you have marked with an X? 16 A. It would have been either MK-4 or MK-5. 17 Q. Okay. Do you have any knowledge 18 whether MK-4 contained asbestos or not? 19 A. It did not. 20 Q. It did containtremoliteasbestos, 21 though, would you agree with that? 22 MS. CLARK: Object to the form 23 of the question. It calls for 24 speculation on the part of this 25 witness. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 81 1 A. It had vermiculite aggregate. 2 Q. Okay. I believe you testified earlier 3 that vermiculite ore was contaminated with tremolite 4 asbestos; is that right? 5 A. I believe that's a true statement. 6 Q. So even though raw asbestos fiber was 7 not added to MK-4 or MK-5 as it was with MK-3, these 8 products still contained vermiculite which you 9 believe was contaminated with asbestos; is that 10 right? 11 MS. CLARK; I object to the form 12 of the question that the vermiculite -- 13 whether he would have information that 14 the vermiculite that was actually used 15 in the product would have been 16 contaminated with tremolite as opposed 17 to the ore, I think, that you 18 questioned him about earlier. 19 A. I'll answer by saying that the 20 occurrence of tremolite is extremely small in MK-4 21 and 5 products. 22 Q. But you attended conferences and 23 meetings in the early '70s and mid-'70s where you 24 and other representatives of W.R. Grace discussed 25 whether or not vermiculite was contaminated with PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 82 1 small amounts of asbestos form tremolite; is that 2 right? 3 A. Not in the early '70s. 4 Q. Was it in the late '70s? 5 A. More like '80. 6 Q. Okay. In the 1980s, did you understand 7 that the MK-4 and 5 that you were selling back in 8 the early '70s or mid-'70s contained small amounts 9 of tremolite asbestos? 10 A. Yes. 11 Q. Okay. So even though you put an X next 12 to these buildings, all the X indicates is you're 13 not aware that the building contained MK-3 which was 14 contaminated with chrysotile asbestos fiber? 15 A. Well, just like I said, those that are 16 indicated were MK-4 or 5. 17 Q. All right. Let's talk about the 18 buildings which you have not put an X next to. Can 19 we do that? 20 A. Sure. 21 Q. Okay. Do you have personal knowledge 22 that MK-3 was applied in each of the buildings that 23 are unmarked with the X? 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. Okay. What is that personal knowledge PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 83 1 based upon? 2 A. Being on the jobsite. 3 Q. Okay. Did you actually sell the 4 material to the architect? 5 A. We actually sold the material to the 6 applicators who installed it. 7 Q. I/m sorry. Now, next to each of these 8 building names, for example, The Apparel Mart, 9 there's a number. Next to The Apparel Mart it says 10 20,000. 11 What does the 20,000 indicate? 12 A. That would be the approximate number of 13 bags of material. 14 Q. 20,000 bags. In a tractor trailer when 15 you've got the cab of the truck and the trailer, how 16 many of those trailers would it required to haul 17 20,000 bags of MK-3? 18 A. As few as 20 as many as 25. 19 Q. 25 truck loads? 20 A. Correct. 21 Q. How about 85,000 bags? 22 A. Given that the trailer would hold 23 anywhere form 800 to 1,000, it would be 85 to 100 24 and some or over 100 truck loads. 25 Q. How many tractor trailers were owned or PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 84 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 operated by W.R. Grace here in Dallas? A. At no time were there more than three, I believe. Q. Did they ever collect much dust parked at the parking lot or were they pretty much on the road? A. They had high utilization. Q. Were the bags of MK-3 removed directly from the conveyer belt or storage area onto the back of these trucks? A. Yes. Q. Could you please read into the record the names of every building to which Monokote MK-3 was applied? A. On page one: The Apparel Mart, First International Building now known as Renaissance Tower, Main Tower, 2001 Bryan Tower, Dallas Federal Savings & Loan, 4226 Douglas Tower, Mockingbird Towers, Stemmons Twin Towers, D/FW Airport Terminals, Empire Stemmons Tower, Dallas North Plaza Tower, Dallas North Bank & Trust. Q. On page two you've also listed a number of building names; Denton, Fort Worth, Dallas County, Corpus Christi. We'll turn the machine off, and I'd like for you to do the same thing which you PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 85 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 did on page one, and that is, tell us which buildings you recall having MK-3 applied in, okay? Can you do that for us? A. Very difficult to do it. Some of them I have knowledge of; some I just don't recall. But I would say since they're on this list that if they were, in fact, completed prior to July of '73 that they have MK-3 on them. Q. Which buildings were completed prior to 1973, can you tell us that? A. On page two it looks like all of them. Q. How about page three? A. The same. Q. Page four? A. I would say also completed prior to '73 . Q. What makes you say that? What makes you believe that these buildings were listed prior to 1973? A. Page three says dated 2/1/71. Q. A. Excuse me. Page four says that? Page three. Whoops. It is page four. Q. Do you recall receiving page two, three and four and five in 1971? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 86 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Yes, that's a fair statement. Q. We've got a housekeeping problem here in that I've mark as Deposition Exhibit No. 2 all five pages. What I'd like to do now is tear off Deposition Exhibit No. 2 and mark as a separate exhibit pages one, two, three, four. At the top of page one it states Texas and Oklahoma Vermiculite Companies Representative Monokote Fireproofing Job List, Master List dated 2-1-71. We'll mark this as Plaintiff's Exhibit No. 3, and I'd like to go ahead and staple that. MR. WORTHINGTON: Why don't we go ahead and take a short break. (Discussion off the record.) (Deposition Exhibit 3 marked for identification.) Q. Mr. Sheeran, I'd like to ask you about Deposition Exhibit No. 3, the Texas and Oklahoma Monokote job list. When did you first receive a copy of this particular document? A. I would have to say in 1971 or 2. list? Q. And do you remember who gave you the A. I believe it was compiled by Mike PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 87 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Moran. Q. Did you have anything to do with providing any of the information or building names on this list? A. I'm sure I did. Q. Okay. What is the significance of this list? What is it for? What does it mean? A. Originally I think I previously stated that it was used as a list just to show in a piece of promotional literature the wide acceptance of this wonderful product. Q. When you say wonderful product, you're referring to MK-3? A. Yes. Q. Do you have any knowledge whether some of these buildings had MK-1 or MK-2 in them? A. I don't know. Q. But because the list was compiled in 1971 and MK-4 didn't come along until later, you believe that each one of these buildings contains some asbestos containing form of Monokote; is that right? A. Yes. Q. Going through that list, Mr. Sheeran, could you please mark with an X the buildings to PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 88 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 which MonoXote MK-3 were applied according to your personal knowledge; in other words, which buildings that you have some involvement in selling the MK-3 A. Yes, I can do that. Q. Okay. You want to go off the record and take your time? A. Okay. It won't take long. It's not all of them. (Discussion off the record.) Q. Mr. Sheeran, have you gone through Deposition Exhibit No. 3 and tried, to the best of your recollection and best of your ability, to mark each building to which W.R. Grace applied its or somebody applied W.R. Grace Monokote MK-3 asbestos-containing products? A. That's correct. Q. Would you please, so that the record's clear, identify each of those buildings? Just read them out for us. A. Mercantile BankAddition, Dallas; Dallas North Plaza; Twin Towers Building; Sears Regional Office Building; Bruton Park Office Buildings, I believe that should be building singular; Dallas Federal Savings & Loan; Sanger PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 89 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Harris, Six Flags Mall; Tarrant County Savings & Loan; and Fort Worth -- excuse me. In Longview, Good Shepherd Hospital. In San Antonio, USAA Insurance Office Building. Tyler, East Texas TB Hospital, and that's it. Q. Mr. Sheeran, also in Deposition Exhibit No. 1, which is the notice of deposition, there was an Exhibit B which was a list of various buildings in Dallas and Fort Worth. Did you go through that list and indicate the buildings that had Monokote MK-3 applied in them? A. Best of my ability. hard to identify by that name. Some were very Q. Could you please -- A. Some are duplications as well. Q. I realize there may be some duplications, but could you please identify on the record the buildings on this list to which MK-3 was applied? A. Yes. Let me clarify something. Those that I have highlighted are those that I have personal knowledge of with the MK-4 or 5 product on your Exhibit B. Q. Okay. Do you have any personal PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 90 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 knowledge of having MK-3 applied in any of those buildings? A. Q. right now. Yes . Those are the ones I'm interested in Could you just identify those? A. If you want to take a minute, I'll mark them. Q. Take a minute; take two minutes. MR. WORTHINGTON: We'll go off the record. (Discussion off the record.) A. I've marked the ones I can say I know contained the MK-3 product. Q. Have you gone through the exhibit and tried to mark each building which you believe, according to your knowledge and experience and work history, you believe those buildings contain MK-3? A. Yes. Q. Okay. Could you read into the record those buildings, please? A. Renaissance Tower in Dallas, Mercantile Bank in Dallas, Dallas Apparel Mart, Dallas/Fort Worth Airport and that's it. I'm sorry, but all schools look alike to me. Q. And your knowledge of the sale of MK-3 PRIT,CHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 91 1 in Dallas is limited between 1970 and 1973; isn't 2 that right? 3 A. Correct. 4 Q. And you don't have perfect knowledge of 5 all of the buildings to which MK-3 was applied in 6 which Tom Cheatham negotiated the deal? 7 A. That's a pretty true statement, yes. 8 Q. Tom Cheatham may have been working on 9 some deals where he sold MK-3 that you don't know 10 anything about? 11 A. Yes. 12 Q. I'd have to ask Tom Cheatham about 13 those buildings? 14 A. Correct. 15 (Deposition Exhibit 1 marked for identification.) 16 17 Q. The other buildings which you've 18 highlighted, what does the highlight indicate? 19 A. That indicates that I have personal 20 knowledge that they are incorporating MK-4 or 5. 21 MR. WORTHINGTON: We need to 22 mark this map as Exhibit 4. 23 (Deposition Exhibit 4 marked for identification.) 24 25 A. Your exhibit names some buildings that PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 92 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I don't know by that name that, you know, I may or may not have been there. Q. Okay. MR. WORTHINGTON: At this stage, I would like to take a lunch break. It's 12:30. Can we be back here around 1:00 o'clock or so? MS. CLARK: Sure. (Lunch recess taken.) Q. Mr. Gibson, who has knowledge of the existence of Deposition Exhibit No. 2 within the W.R. Grace Corporation? A. Ralph McCloud would know of it, and John Daniker is aware of it. Joel Hortenstein in Atlanta was aware of it. Q. Who was Mr. Daniker? A. Daniker is a vice president in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Q. Vice president of what? A. believe. Construction products division I Q. Grace? The Zonolite products division of W.R. A. Uh-huh. Q. Do you know Mr. Daniker? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 93 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Yes. Q. Have you spoken with him about this particular document? A. He asked for it the last time I saw him, which was probably a couple of years ago. Q. A couple of years ago he asked for it? A. Yeah. Q. Did he tell you why he wanted it? A. No, he just said. Please send it to me. Q. How do you believe he knew about the existence of this document? A. I mentioned it at a meeting. Q. How long ago was that meeting? A. It was in August of 1989. Q. Was asbestos abatement discussed at that meeting? A. No, but there was some discussion about the abatement market and what it looked like for refireproofing of abated buildings. Q. What do you mean by refireproofing? A. In a building where somebody has made the decision to take out the asbestos-containing materials, in order to get a certificate of occupancy that building has to be provided with appropriate fire resistance ratings to meet the PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 94 1 code, so somebody has to go in and reapply new 2 fireproofing material where the old was removed 3 because the code does not change. If anything, it's 4 more stringent. 5 Q. Did you or any other salesmen for Grace 6 ever notify any owners of buildings that their 7 building had asbestos in it and therefore would be 8 subject to an abatement? 9 A. No. 10 Q. Do you know if anyoneever did that? 11 A. Not to my knowledge. 12 Q. When was this documentactually 13 compiled or typed up? 14 A. I believe it's in '78. 15 Q. '78? 16 A. Yeah. 17 Q. Of what interest was it to you and the 18 other persons who helped put this document together 19 in 1978 to identify the buildings with asbestos in 2 0 them in Dallas? 21 A. I was asked to do a survey on the 22 subject to identify what the market potential was 23 for product sales of a replacement fireproofing 24 material. 25 Q. Who asked youto'do that survey? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 95 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Ralph McCloud. Q. Was he employed here in Dallas by A. Right, at the time. Q. Okay. Did the company make a business decision that they would try to sell asbestos-free Monokote to the owners of buildings who had to remove the asbestos-containing Monokote? A. Yes, once the decision had been made to remove that which contained asbestos. Q. Do you know who was responsible for that decision to undertake an abatement at these various buildings? A. Normally the owner. Q. Okay. Did you everhave any communications with the owners in which you advised them that their building did have asbestos in it and therefore would be subject to an abatement? A. If asked. Q. Did the company, andyourself included, essentially see a business opportunity to go back into these buildings and refireproof them with asbestos-free MS. CLARK: I'm going to object to the extent that it calls for the PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 96 1 company's -- what the company might 2 have seen and extends beyond what his 3 personal knowledge would be. 4 Q. Ralph McCloud asked you to put this 5 list together, right? 6 A. To put some numbers on a potential 7 market. 8 Q. Did you see a potential market or 9 business opportunity? 10 A. Yes. 11 Q. And what was that business opportunity? 12 A. To sell a product for replacement 13 fireproofing. 14 Q. And when did Mr. Daniker become aware 15 of this? 16 A. I believe it was at a meeting in August 17 about '90. 18 Q. When did -- 19 A. Excuse me, '89. 20 Q. When did Mr. Daniker, toyour 21 knowledge, become aware of Deposition Exhibit No. 3, 22 which is that list that was compiled in '71, if 23 ever? 24 A. Same time. 25 Q. Okay. Did he specifically ask you for PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 97 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------j 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 these documents? A. Yes. Q. Did he tell you why he wanted you to send them to him? A. No, he didn't. Q. What was your understanding? A. I would usually comply with his wishes. Q. What was his motivation, in your opinion, as to why he wanted these things? MS. CLARK: I object to the form of the question. It calls for the witness to speculate. A. I don't really know. Q. Did he ask you to send him these copies and not send them to anyone else? A. Yes. Q. Did he ask you to refrain from showing these to any lawyers? A. Q. originals? No. Did he ask you to shred or burn the A. No, he said he wanted them. Q. He wanted the originals? A. Yes. Q. Did he advised you not to make copies? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 98 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. I don't recall. Q. Did you get the impression that this was confidential between you and Mr. Daniker, these documents? A. Yes. Q. Did you ever show these to anyone outside of Mr. Daniker? A. Yes. Q. Who else did you show these to? A. Tom Cheatham has seen them. Joel Hortenstein has a copy of them. Q. Joel Hortenstein is in Atlanta? A. Yes. Q. Who does he work for? A. Mike Ragan, R-a-g-a-n. Q. What kind of company is that? A. He works for Grace. Ragan is his boss. Q. What's his position, Hortenstein? A. Southeast district manager. Q. Do you know why he was privy to these documents? A. I think he asked to see them, too. Q. Did you feel like either Mr. Hortenstein or Mr. Daniker was putting any pressure on you to avoid publicizing or circulating these PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS O j. j\ri*i 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 documents? A. No. Again, they just said that they wanted to get them, wanted to see them. Q. Did he ever tell why he wanted them? A. Not really. Q. Have you ever had any communications with any building owners in Dallas in which you discussed the need for any potential asbestos abatement? A. No, I have not. Q. Do you know which, if any, of these buildings have undertaken an asbestos abatement? A. I could name a few of them. Q. Can you do that for me, please? A. The Stemmons Twin Towers, The 1111 Mockingbird Tower, The First International Building now known as Renaissance Tower. The Empire Stemmons Tower has been surveyed several times. Nothing's been done. The Southland Center has been surveyed extensively. Nothing's been done. Q. What is your understanding of the purpose of an abatement? A. To remove asbestos-containing materials or materials that contain other regulated materials. Q. Have you had any conversations with PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS a o . onttKAi'i x <J <J 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 owners of buildings who complain that they're unable J to sell their building because it has asbestos in j it? A. I have not. Q. Have you ever discussed the presence of asbestos inside the Southland Center Building with anybody? A. Yes. Q. Who have you talked to about that? A. DCM Engineers here in Dallas. Q. What did you talk to them about? A. We, in fact, walked a building from top to bottom to identify what was where. There were several different types of fireproofing systems used in the building. Q. Do you know what friable asbestos is? A. Yes. Q. Is Monokote MK-3, once in place for at least 15 years, friable? A. Usually not. Q. When do you understand that OSHA came into existence? A. I'm not sure. 15 years ago. I'd just have to guess, Q. When did you understand that W.R. Grace PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 10 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 shifted from MK-3 to MK-4? A. In order to comply with the law which, I believe, took effect the first week in July of ' 73 . Q. How long had you known prior to July of 7 7 3 that the government was promulgating regulations to eliminate asbestos contamination? A. Less than two years. Closer to one year. Q. You first understood as a salesman for W.R. Grace that OSHA or any other federal agency was preparing rules and regulations to control the level of asbestos dust in manufacturing plants and on jobsites; is that right? A. Did I know at what time? Q. In 1971. Is that the year that you understood that was happening? A. At the earliest. Q. Okay. And did you discuss the future regulatory horizon with Mr. Moran? A. Yes. Q. And did you understand that the death knell was sounding for the asbestos industry and their continued ability to use asbestos in their products? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STERtlEN J. ShEERAN 10 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Yes. MS. CLARK: Object to the form of the question of using the term "death knell." It's a vague term subject to interpretation. Q. At the time, did you understand that W.R. Grace was investing any money into the research of or development of alternatives to asbestos in their fireproofing products? A. Yes, I was aware of it. Q. What types of substitute materials were available at that time? A. Glass fibers. Q. How about cellulose or wood pulp or paper? A. I believe the material, all the Monokote products as I knew, always did have some content of cellulose in them, and the glass fiber was first introduced after July of '73. Q. How long, to your knowledge, had the glass fiber and cellulose and other alternative or substitute materials for asbestos been available to W.R. Grace and any other company making asbestos containing fiber? A. That I can't truthfully answer. Glass PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 103 1 fiber has been around for a long, long time. 2 Q. Did you understand that glass fiber had 3 inherent fireproofing or fire resistant properties? 4 A. None that I'm aware of. 5 Q. Was it your understanding in the early 6 '70s that asbestos was included in the MK-3 and 7 other W.R. Grace products for the dual purpose of 8 preventing cracking or disintegration in the final 9 product and also to act as a re-enforcing agent in 10 the material? 11 A. Yes, that and as I mentioned before, 12 it's workability. 13 Q. When you say workability, is that, 14 like, pumpability through a hose or something? 15 A. Specifically, it was very good for the 16 pumping quality of the material. 17 Q. It made the material slicker 18 essentially? 19 A. Correct. 20 Q. Is it true, then, that you did not 21 understand that asbestos was put in the product for 22 the sole reason of providing for thermal insulation? 23 A. No, I never believed that was its 24 purpose. 25 Q. Now, let's talk about what happened PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS J iLraLu u onLLAfin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 when the government finally enacted regulations which required companies to either curtail the use of asbestos or warn consumers as to the potential health hazards of asbestos. In 1971 and '72, did you discuss with Mike Moran what the economic and marketing and manufacturing repercussions would be if the government banned or limited the use of asbestos? A. Not specifically for those reasons. More for application problems. Q. What do you mean by that? A. With the pumpability of a product. Q. Did you and Moran discuss what the company would need to do in order to retrofit their equipment to manufacture an asbestos-free product? A. Not really. Q. Was any mechanical or engineering retrofitting required to manufacture an asbestos-free product? A. Not that I know of. Q. Did the company have to invest any money in any equipment or machinery in order to produce an asbestos-free product right here in Dallas? A. They originally did. The suppliers PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 105 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 eventually provided them a product that didn't require any further processing. Q. Do you know how much money was invested in order to retrofit for an asbestos-free product? A. No, I don't. Q. Was it less than $10,000? MS. CLARK: Object to the form of the question. He's already said he doesn't know how much was spent. Q. Can you give me a ballpark figure? A. I really can't. Q. Did you understand that there was a date certain when the W.R. Grace plant on Manilla Road could no longer manufacture asbestos-containing products? A. It was my understanding that the ban or the law that went into effect did not regulate the manufacture but the application of those products. Q. Okay. Did you understand that there was a date certain when W.R. Grace was going to cease using chrysotile asbestos in their Monokote products? A. Yes. Q. What was that date? A. I believed it to be around the 1st of PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 106 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 July Of 1973. Q. Who set that date? A. I believe that was in the federal regulation by OSHA. Q. Was that the date that the federal regulation was promulgated or came into effect, to your knowledge? A. It had to be July of '73. That was the deadline at which time no products or -- no products could be applied, so Moran arranged for all the MK-3 product to be shipped in June for the last time. Q. As a salesman, did you and Mr. Cheatham or Mr. Moran or any other salesman ever voice any concern about the potential increase cost of an asbestos-free Monokote? A. No, not really. Q. Did the switch over to an asbestos-free Monokote fireproofing cause an increase in the price of the bag of material? A. I believe there was a price increase for it. Q. Do you know how much a bag of MK-3 cost in 1973 versus a bag of MK-4 in 1973? A. The MK-4 was higher. Just how much more, I don't recall at this time. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 107 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. Do you believe it was less than 50 cents higher? A. That/s in the ballpark. Q Less than a dollar anyway? A Under a dollar. Q Okay. When the plant on Manilla Road in Dallas ceased applying chrysotile asbestos in their MK--3 product, did the plant shut down? A I really don't know. I can't remember. Q. And in 1973, did you remain employed? A Yes. Q. Did you continue to sell Monokote? A. Yes. Q. And the phone kept ringing where people wanted to buy Monokote? A. Yes. Q. You don't, in your mind, today remember any slow down in the manufacture of Monokote? A. Oh, yes. Q. Was there a slow down? A. There was tremendous field problems. Quit making it every other day. Q. Could you tell me what kind of field problems you had? A. Going back to the pumpability of the PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 108 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 material. It didn't pump. Q. It didn't pump as well? The asbestos-free didn't pump as well? A. No, it was really a nightmare. Q. But the company was continuing to sell a product -- an asbestos-free product, and the company did not have to shut down when it switched over to an asbestos-free product? A. Yes, basically. It did not have to shut down. Q. Pardon me? A. It did nothave to shut down. Q. What was the date that W.R. Grace stopped putting asbestos in their Monokote? A. Here in Dallas, the last asbestos-containing MK-3 was sent to jobsites somewhere mid-June -- Q. Okay. A. -- in order that it would be consumed prior to the law which penalized the applicator on a per day basis. Q. So prior to mid-June, you and Mr. Moran understood that asbestos was going to be regulated in a matter of time? A. Yes. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 109 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. And you understood that the reason for the regulation was that asbestos posed a serious health hazard? A. Yes. Q. And that health hazard was posed to workers in the mills, applicators in the field, bystanders, neighbors who lived around manufacturing plants? MS. CLARK: Object to the form of the question. I think it's a multiple question, and it would require -- each segment would require a different answer, and I think it also calls for speculation on the part of this witness. I don't think he's shown that he has the expertise sufficient to discuss potential health hazards to every segment that you mention in your question. A. I don't know how to answer except that they were complying with the regulation to be within the law. Q. Prior to the date the law took effect, though, you and Mr. Moran understood that asbestos did pose a health hazard to plasterers and PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 110 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 applicators of asbestos-containing MK-3; is that right? MS. CLARK: I'm going to object to the form of the question, especially to the extent that it calls for what Mr. Moran might have understood, since Mr. Moran's not testifying and that would be speculation on the part of this witness as to what another person understood or didn't understand. A. At that point, we realized that it was harmful, yes. Q. Okay. And you didn't just realize that on your own. People from Grace talked to you about that; is that right? MS. CLARK: Object to the leading form of the question. A. I believe everybody had a lot of information available from different sources as to the potential hazards of exposure. Q. And in the early '70s, Mr. Sheeran, you didn't subscribe to the Code of Federal Regulations or the Federal Register of the United States Government, did you? A. No, I did not. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS o a .Li c n u 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. You didn't read proposed rules and promulgated rules? A. No. Q. Did you attend meetings sponsored by W.R. Grace in the early '70s where asbestos was discussed? A. No. Q. How did you first learn in the '70s that asbestos posed a health hazard? A. By reading industry journals mostly. Q. Did you ever get any memoranda or correspondence from Mr. Vining or Mr. Sterrett or Mr. Kostick or any other employee of the Zonolite Company or W.R. Grace regarding asbestos health hazards? A. None that I can recall. Q. You said you first learned about asbestos being harmful in a medical journal? A. In industry journals, there were several articles that got wide circulation in the late '60s. Q. What industrial journal are you referring to? A. That's a good question. I would say that the Construction Specifications Institute PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 112 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 monthly publication was always a good source of new and/or controversial topics. Q. Was that journal available to all the salesmen at W.R. Grace? A. Yes. Q. Was it available to the management of the construction division -A. Certainly. Q. -- of W.R. Grace? A. Yes. Q. How long had Grace been subscribing to that, if you know? A. I took a membership in the CSI organization first month I went to work for Grace. It was something that everybody belonged to. Q. That was as early as 1966? A. Yes. Q. Did the articles you read discuss the potential for asbestos to cause asbestosis -A. Yes. Q. -- and the potential for asbestos to cause lung cancer -A. Yes. Q. -- in applicators as well as plant workers? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 113 1 A. Yes. 2 Q. Did you ever talk to anyone at W.R. 3 Grace about that, about those medical articles or 4 j ournals? 5 A. I can't say that I was the one to bring 6 up the subject. 7 Q. Did anyone ever bring that subject up 8 with you? 9 A. Eventually. 10 Q. Was that later in the '70s? 11 A. No, early in the '70s before the change 12 was made to take out the asbestos. Nobody knew, 13 really, how it would work. It was a trial and error 14 situation. 15 Q. Did you talk to Mr. Moran about how the 16 company was able to adjust to an asbestos-free 17 Monokote product? 18 A. A whole lot. 19 Q. Did you talk to Mr. Moran about even 20 the need to remove asbestos from the product? 21 A. I don't believe so. 22 Q. Did Mr. Moran ever tell you whether he 23 thought asbestos should be removed or not from the 24 product? 25 A. If he had his way, it would still be in PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 114 1 it. 2 Q. What makes you say that? 3 A. He was just a very hard-nosed person. 4 Q. Where do you think he picked up that 5 hard-nosed attitude about the dangers of the 6 products? 7 MS. CLARK: Object to the form 8 of the question. That would call for 9 speculation on the part of this 10 witness, and he didn't say that he had 11 a hard-nosed attitude about the 12 products. He said he was a hard-nosed 13 individual, and plus it would be, I 14 think, beyond this witness's ability to 15 testify about where he picked up an 16 attitude. 17 A. Mike -- 18 Q. Let me ask the question. What is Mr. 19 Moran's educational background, do you know? 20 A. I believe a degree in business 21 administration. 22 Q. What was his business background? 23 A. Various construction products from a 24 supplier side. 25 Q. Did he ever serve in the military? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 115 1 A. Mike was a colonel in the Army during 2 World War II. 3 Q. I've never met Mr. Moran, and he's 4 died, hasn't he? 5 A. Yes, he has. 6 Q. Could you describe for me what his 7 personality was like? 8 A. To quote him, it's my way or the 9 highway, and he was a rather explosive guy. 10 Q. Did he ever explode in any meetings you 11 had with him where the topic of removing asbestos 12 from Monokote was discussed? 13 A. I wouldn't say he exploded over the 14 subject, but he didn't like it because it meant 15 problems. 16 Q. What kind of problems did it mean? 17 A. Spending time and effort in the field 18 to make the stuff work. 19 Q. Basically, it presented a problem to 20 the bottom line of the company; is that right? 21 MS. CLARK: Object to the form 22 of the question. That's a 23 misrepresentation of what his testimony 24 was, and it's a leading question. 25 A. There were a lot of buildings that were PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 116 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 half done and had to be finished, and it was just extremely difficult to get them finished on schedule with the new product. Q. So Mr. Moran voiced to you concerns about the ability to finish contracts that had already been entered and finish buildings that were already under construction with MK-3? A. Yes, sir. Our customers were having fits with it, and if they couldn't finish on time, they were going to have penalties and snowball effect. Q. Would you agree that Mr. Moran's concerns were primarily limited to the profitability of the company? MS. CLARK: I object to the form of the question. I think that would call for speculation on the part of this witness of what another individual's concerns were. A. Well, I would say he was quite concerned about survivability of our customers, too. Q. Did he ever express to you any concerns about the potential for asbestos to kill applicators or workers? A. No. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 117 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that? Q. Do you think he was concerned about MS. CLARK: I object to the form of the question. I think that calls for speculation. A. I believe he was concerned. Q. Did he ever advise his plant workers to wear respirators? A. I really can't answer that. Q. Did he ever submit a memo that ever came across your desk advising you to not walk through the plant when they're making asbestos-containing products? A. No, never. Q. Did he ever advise you not to wear a dust mask when walking through the plant here in Dallas when they were making asbestos-containing products? MS. CLARK: Can you wait just a second. Let me just tell this guy I'm not going to be ready to go. A. He never advised me to wear one. (Discussion off the record.) Q. Mr. Sheeran, in the early 1970s, do you know how much a disposable dust mask cost here in PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 118 1 the Dallas area? 2 A. No, I don't. 3 Q. Less than 50 cents? 4 MS. CLARK: Object to the form 5 of the question. He's already said he 6 didn't know how much they cost. 7 Q. Could you give me a ballpark figure, 8 Mr. Sheeran? 9 A. The last time I bought any, they were 10 about a dollar, and that was probably ten years ago. 11 Q. So in 1980 they cost a buck? 12 A. Yeah. 13 Q. You had been involved in the 14 construction business and you dealt with a lot of 15 suppliers, isn't that true, throughout your career? 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. In the 1960s, were dust masks and 18 respirators on the shelves at the Blue Diamond 19 Company and various other building suppliers here in 20 Dallas? 21 A. I'm sure they were. 22 Q. Prior to 1973, had you ever seen any of 23 the mixers or operators or machinists or laborers 24 inside the plant here in Dallas wearing any type of 25 dust protection? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 119 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. I'd have to say that I must have seen somebody wearing something. Q. But you don't have any specific recollection of seeing that? A. No. Q. Did you ever see a skull and crossbones on any of the bags of MK-3? A. No. Q. What does a skull and crossbones mean to you? A. Poison. Q. Did you ever see a skull and crossbones on any notices on the bulletin board or in the lunch room at the plant here in Dallas? A. I don't believe so. Q. Do you think, generally, a skull and crossbones is a pretty good way of notifying people of potential dangers? A. I do. Q. How many years did you serve W.R. Grace as one of their employees? A. All in all, counting the time with Texas Vermiculite which was credited as being part of a subsidiary company, 23 years. If that doesn't add up, it's because I left two years in '81, '82 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 120 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 and came back in 'S3. Q. Okay. Did they give you any kind of watch, gold watch or anything when you left? A. Nope. Q. Did they give you a pat on the back? What did they give you when you left? A. Severance under the policy established for severance. Q. Were you fired from the company? A. Yes. Q. Did they explain toyou why? A. Not really. Q. Did you feel like you did a pretty good job for W.R. Grace for 23 years? A. Uh-huh, I believe I did. Q. During your 23years, did you attend regular meetings with corporate officials? A. Yes. Q. Did you talk about the sales of Monokote and the productivity of your various plants? A. Yes. Q. Did you ever talk about the productivity of the plant in Libby, Montana? A. Yes. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 12 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. Did you and the other W.R. Grace employees ever discuss any health hazards posed by asbestos in the Libby, Montana plant? A. Not in the plant. Q. How about outside the plant? A. Oh, I think eventually everybody got personally concerned to some degree. Q. Did you ever see any kind of memoranda in which a concern was expressed that workers in various expanding plants were exposed to a definite health hazard from asbestos? A. No. The sales people were really not brought in on the function of the plants very much. Q. Selikoff? Did you ever hear of Dr. Irving A. Yes. Q. Did you know that he wrote various articles in which he discussed the health hazards associated with asbestos to fireproofers and applicators and various other construction workers? A. Yes, I've read some of his work. Q. Do you remember when you first read some of his work? A. I would have to say in 1968. Q. Did that make an impression on you? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J SnEERAN 1L 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. It was very interesting reading. Q. Did you ever read any of his material in which he opined that asbestos workers and fireproofers, in particular, would have a shortened lifespan due to their occupational exposure to asbestos? A. I've read some of his studies about mortality rates that were higher among asbestos-related trades. Q. Did you ever discuss this with Mr. Vining for W.R. Grace? A. I don't believe so. Q. Did you ever discuss asbestos health hazards with Mr. Sterrett? A. The topic invariably came up at meetings in regard to competition statements for the most part. Q. Did you ever feel any pressure to continue to sell asbestos-containing Monokote products simply because your competition, such as Cafco, were also selling asbestos-containing product? A. No. Q. When did you learn thatasbestos was a carcinogen? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS O ^ Lj -k' il 4 it U O ll Zj 4 x Z. J 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Again, probably in 1968 when the first publications -- or the first articles made national publications Q. In 1968, had you ever seen any memoranda or any other correspondence from W.R. Grace in which corporate officials acknowledge that asbestos was a carcinogen? A. No. Q. Mr. Sheeran, do you know what a TLV is? A. Yes. Q. What is a TLV? A. Threshold limit value. term? Q. When do you think you first heard that A. Probably 1969 or '70s. Q. Did you ever hear that term used in connection with exposure levels to asbestos? A. Yes. Q. Did you ever see any memoranda or letters or correspondence from W.R. Grace advising salesmen to advise customers that applicators are to maintain their exposure to asbestos below the threshold limit value? A. At what time? At what point in time? Q. Before 1970. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 124 1 A. NO. 2 Q. You've been on some jobsites before, 3 haven't you? 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. Had you been on jobsites here in Dallas 6 before 1973? 7 A. Yes. 8 Q. How many jobsites do you think you had 9 been on where asbestos-containing MK-3 was being 10 applied? 11 A. Every one of them identified on those 12 lists. 13 Q. And I believe youtestifiedearlier 14 that there was dust in the air when the MK-3 was 15 being mixed and applied; is that right? 16 A. Normally, yes. 17 Q. Did you ever see an official of the 18 W.R. Grace Corporation take any kind of dust 19 measurement or dust count to measure the level of 20 ambient asbestos? 21 A. I have in the last ten years. 22 Q. The first time you ever saw anyone from 23 W.R. Grace taking dust counts in Dallas was sometime 24 after 1980? 25 A. I take that back. It was earlier than PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 12 5 1 that. Probably in '74. 2 Q. Was that on a jobsite 3 A. Yes. 4 Q. -- or was that in your plant? 5 A. On a jobsite. 6 Q. Who was that person? 7 A. I don't remember. 8 Q. What did you understand the purpose for 9 conducting an asbestos dust count on a jobsite? 10 A. To just monitor how much was ingested. 11 Q. Did you ever adviseLawrence Smith or 12 Mr. Stenzle or any of the people at Storbeck & 13 Gregory that they ought to advise their applicators 14 to keep their exposure to asbestos dust below the 15 threshold limit value? 16 A. Not in those words. 17 Q. Did anyone ever tell you before 1973 18 that the threshold limit value for asbestos as 19 written at that time was probably too high and 20 should be lower? 21 A. I don't believe so. 22 Q. Did anyone tell you that the threshold 23 limit value should not be interpreted as a fine line 24 between safe and unsafe but is merely a guideline? 25 A. I believe I was aware of that. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 12 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. Do you believe that asbestos dust, based upon your knowledge and experience, remains airborne for a long period of time? MS. CLARK: I'm going to object to the form of the question that it lacks foundation and it calls for speculation and it's beyond the scope of a fact witness to be able to testify about. A. In answering you, all I can recall is what I've read on the subject that asbestos fibers are aerodynamic, can remain airborne. Q. You understand that they're very light and they can widely disperse? MS. CLARK: I object to the form of the question. It's a leading question. Q. Have you readarticles in whichthe lightness and migratory properties of asbestos were discussed? A. Yes. Q. On thesejobsites here in Dallas when you saw plasterers applying MK-3, were there other workers in the area? A. Normally. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 127 1 Q. What other kinds of workers or crafts 2 would be in the area? 3 A. A lot of electricians, plumbers, steel 4 workers, sometimes concrete finishers. If they're 5 out of proper sequencing, it could be anybody. 6 Q. Did you ever read any literature 7 published by Dr. Selikoff in which he warned of 8 asbestos snow drifting from fireproofing projects in 9 downtown Manhattan? 10 A. I believe I saw that alluded to, yes. 11 Q. Did you see that in the actual journal 12 or is that something that you learned from 13 conversations with other W.R. Grace employees? 14 A. I've seen films. 15 Q. Did W.R. Grace create and disseminate a 16 film depicting the proper use of MK-3? 17 A. Not that I recall. 18 Q. Did you ever see any films that were 19 made by W.R. Grace involving the application of 20 fireproofing materials? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. In those films, did you see applicators 23 applying MK-3 and othermaterials? 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. Were any of those applicators wearing a PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 12 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 respirator? A. Most of the time. Q. Have you ever seen a man who just spent six hours applying MK-3 in a building? A. I've done it. Q. You've actuallyapplied ityourself? A. Yes. Q. Could you describe in the most descriptive words you can, what did you look like after spraying MK-3 for awhile? A. Basically frosted like a cake. It just gets all over the particular man who is applying it. Q. Would it get in your nose? A. If you're not wearing a mask, it would. Q. Did it stick to your clothing or did it fall right off? A. It'll stick to your clothing until it dries, at which time it falls off. Q. When it dries, does itflake off or does it just fall off by itself? A. It'll brush off. If it's heavy enough, it'll flake off by itself. Q. Did you know a Mr. Egan? A. Tom Egan was a Grace employee when I went to work in Detroit. He was in Pittsburgh. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 129 1 Q. Did he ever send you any letters or any 2 correspondence or any literature about Monokote? 3 A. We had correspondence about Monokote. 4 Q. What kind of information did he relate 5 to you about Monokote? 6 A. Always something in the application or 7 sales items, just product information. 8 Q. Did Mr. Egan ever notify you that W.R. 9 Grace had been notified by the Montana State Board 10 of Health in the '50s that tremolite asbestos posed 11 a serious health hazard? 12 A. No. 13 MS. CLARK: I object to that 14 question. W.R. Grace was not notified 15 in the '50s by anybody. They were not 16 involved in the Libby -- as you well 17 know, in the Libby business in the 18 '50s. They wouldn't have had any means 19 to have been notified or any reason to 20 be notified. 21 Q. Did Mr. Egan ever tell you that W.R. 22 Grace had been notified that asbestos was a serious 23 health hazard? 24 A. No. 25 Q. Do you know what the plant here in PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS 1 Dallas did with the raw asbestos fibers after Mr. j 2 Moran advised you no longer to use it? 3 A. I do not. 4 Q. Do you know if they disposed of it in 5 accordance with federal hazardous waste regulations? 6 A. I don't know what became of it. 7 Q. Did W.R. Grace, to your knowledge, ever 8 advise any schools, hospitals, churches, buildings 9 or any other structures in which asbestos 10 fireproofing had been applied that the asbestos 11 fireproofing should be removed? 12 A. No. 13 Q. Do you know what a recall letter is? 14 A. Yes. 15 Q. To your knowledge, did Grace ever send 16 out a recall letter to any of its customers? 17 A. NO. 18 Q. What is the purpose of a recall letter? 19 A. To get a product off the street to 20 remedy it or replace it. 21 Q. Does the phrase "out of sight, out of 22 mind" mean anything to you? 23 A. Sure. It's applied to lots of things. 24 Q. Do you believe workers in America have 25 a right to know when they're being exposed to poison PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 13 1 1 or hazardous chemicals? t 2 A. Yes. 3 Q. Do you believe that if Grace had 4 received notice that asbestos was dangerous before 5 1965, that they should have warned workers about the 6 potential health hazards from asbestos? 7 A. Yes. 8 MS. CLARK: I object to the form 9 of the question. 10 Q. Was your answer yes? 11 A. Yes. 12 MR. WORTHINGTON: That's all I 13 have. Thank you very much for your 14 time. 15 EXAMINATION 16 BY MS. CLARK: 17 Q. Mr. Sheeran, I want to ask you a few 18 questions. I'm Sandra Clark, and I represent Grace. 19 Would you like to take a break now? 20 This is not going to take me very long. 21 A. No, go ahead. 22 Q. You were asked about the fireproofing 23 and about the substitute products and the 24 substitution of products in the fireproofing. 25 What was your experience with the PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 13 2 1 fireproofing once substitute for asbestos was 2 attempted to be introduced? 3 A. It created some very difficult 4 application problems. 5 Q. What kinds of problems were there? 6 A. In a multistory building when the 7 fireproofing is being applied to the structural 8 steel, it is pumped with a large, powerful pump 9 through a vertical conduit of rubber and aluminum or 10 steel, and the material would tend to plug the 11 system. In other words, it just wouldn't go through 12 the delivery system to the point of application, 13 which caused them to have to stop. It would cause 14 damage to their pumps, labor cost to tear down the 15 whole delivery system and threatened me with great 16 bodily harm when that happened. 17 Q. You described the experience in the 18 first few, I guess, months or years that this 19 substitution was attempting to take place that it 20 was a nightmare. I think that's the word you used 21 to describe it. 22 What about it was a nightmare as far as 23 you were concerned and as far as the applicators of 24 the fireproofing were concerned? 25 A. Well, everybody had to reeducate PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS OiLmLil IJ n < f\ X'l 1 themselves or be reeducated as to what to do and 2 what not to do. It was, you know, not, quote, 3 "idiot proof" anymore. 4 Q. It wasn't that you could just -- that 5 one day the MK-3 was sold with asbestos and the next 6 day there was a substitute product in the MK-3 and 7 it would work just as well, was it? 8 MR. WORTHINGTON: Object to 9 leading. 10 A. Well, it was hoped it would work as 11 well. It did not. 12 Q. It did not as far as your experience 13 was concerned? 14 A. That's right. 15 Q. How long did it take to get the product 16 formulated to the point that it worked as well as 17 the people needed it to work so that it was 18 efficient? 19 A. I'd say two years. 20 Q. Okay. Had there been attempts, to your 21 knowledge, prior to 1973 to come up with new 22 formulations to substitute for asbestos? 23 A. I got involved a little bit in 1972. 24 Q. So as far as you know, there were some 25 -- prior to '73, some experimentation on trying to PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 13 4 1 reformulate the product? 2 A. Yes. 3 Q. Why is fireproofing used in a 4 multistory building? 5 A. The building codes are adopted by -6 let's talk about Dallas or any major city -- by the 7 city counsel as part of the ordinance known as the 8 City Building Code. The major codes are written by 9 code writing authorities. The International 10 Conference of Building Officials writes the Uniform 11 Building Code which has been adopted by the City of 12 Dallas as an ordinance, and it goes in great detail 13 and very thick volumes which would describe 14 conditions of safety for occupants, and fireproofing 15 specifically is a misnomer. It's, in the case of 16 Monokote, a spray-applied, lightweight plaster 17 coating which imparts varying degrees of fire 18 resistance to the steel. Structural steel will fail 19 at elevated temperatures unless it's protected with 20 some kind of insulating material. 21 Q. What do you mean that it would fail? 22 A. Collapse, lose its strength, the way 23 spaghetti does when you put it in boiling water. 24 Q. If there were a fire -- a major fire in 25 a building like I guess we've seen on these PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 135 1 different movies and TV shows -2 A. Yes. 3 Q. -- that then if there's not insulation 4 on the steel, then the whole building could 5 collapse? 6 MR. WORTHINGTON: Object to 7 leading. 8 Q. Is that correct? 9 A. Well, that's the purpose of the 10 material is to provide the building with the ability 11 to withstand elevated temperatures, so yes. Without 12 it, in the presence of elevated temperatures, a 13 steel building and or concrete building can 14 collapse. 15 Q. Okay. Were there certain 16 specifications that were in the fire code that the 17 fireproofing had to meet or certain, I guess, 18 conditions or -19 A. Okay. The code specifies the hourly 20 performance that will be demonstrated by the 21 building before the certificate of occupancy is 22 given. 23 Q. Now, what does that mean? 24 A. That means the buildings have to 25 withstand either one, two, three or four hours of PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 13 6 1 fire duration as tested in an actual assembly at 2 Underwriters Laboratories, for instance. 3 Q. Did the product that was used in 4 fireproofing, whether it was MK-3, 4 or 5 or whether 5 it was the Cafco product you've mentioned, did that 6 have to have some sort of a certificate by the end 7 of -- what's it called the Underwriters 8 Laboratories? 9 A. Underwriters Laboratories provides a 10 follow-up service. They go into the manufacturer's 11 plant unannounced to see that the material which 12 will bear their label on the product container is 13 being manufactured the same as that which was 14 full-scale tested at their facilities. 15 Q. So the Underwriters Laboratories tested 16 the Monokote product as far as you're concerned or 17 as far as you know? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. And theproduct had to produce the 20 fireproofing ability to withstand that one, two, 21 three or four hours of fire that you described? 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. And if it did so, then itreceived a 24 certificate from the Underwriters Laboratory that 25 said that it would do what it was supposed to do? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS SitFritN J. 6nt,c.KAN x-> < 1 A. Under a given set of construction 2 details which were illustrated in their publication. 3 In other words, there are lots of ways to build a 4 building, and they would list the details of the 5 construction type which they fire tested. 6 Q. All right. And Honokote 3 received the 7 Underwriters Laboratory certification? 8 A. Underwriter Laboratories doesn't 9 approve or disapprove anything. They test and 10 report the results of their testing, so yes, it 11 passed their fire test for varying time periods for 12 various types of constructions. Theirs is a testing 13 function. 14 Q. Okay. And then you said they would 15 come into the plant unannounced and make sure that 16 the product that was being manufactured was the same 17 product they had tested and certified? 18 A. Correct. 19 Q. Do you know if several different 20 substitute products were tried in the Honokote 21 before the formula was finally settled upon to be 22 the one that was efficient and useful? 23 A. 24 were. I assume so. I don't know what they 25 Q. Were you involved in that particular PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 138 1 aspect of the product? 2 A. No. 3 Q. As far as from what you've told us 4 today, Mr. Sheeran, you were in sales; is that 5 correct? 6 A. Correct. 7 Q. And your knowledge and the extent 8 your work with the company was primarily sales and 9 was not in how the plant was run, per se; is that 10 correct? 11 A. That's correct. 12 Q. And you were, I believe you said, in 13 the plant on routine occasions but you were not 14 there every day? 15 A. That's right. 16 Q. And is it correct that you didn't have 17 any supervisory capacity over the plant operations 18 themselves? 19 A. That's correct. 20 Q. And I believe you stated that when you 21 were in Dallas working for Texas Vermiculite that 22 you were paid through the Texas Vermiculite Company; 23 is that correct? 24 A. That's correct. 25 Q. And Mike Moran was the president and he PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 13 ? 1 ran that Texas Vermiculite Company? 2 A. That's right. 3 Q. Was that the case until he no longer 4 was associated with the company? 5 A. Correct. 6 Q. And do you recall when the last year 7 was that he was with the company? 8 A. 1975. 9 Q. I've heard in describing the Monokote 10 product the word "cementitious" used. Can you 11 describe what cementitious means as it relates to 12 the Monokote product? 13 A. The term is slightly misleading. 14 There's no cement in it. It's cementitious because 15 it's a plaster, a wet mix which differentiates it 16 from the spray fibrous types of fireproofing. 17 Q. How is it different from this sprayed 18 fireproofing? 19 A. From the sprayed fireproofing? 20 Q. Right. 21 A. It is a plaster, an oatmeal-like 22 substance which is pneumatically pumped, squeezed 23 through a hose, if you will, and atomized with air 24 at the exit point. The sprayed fibrous materials 25 are not a wet mix. They're slightly lower in PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS bJ.rjt'titN J. S tii, r, KAN 1 density, and they are conveyed pneumatically through 2 large hoses with air pressure. At the point of 3 exit, they're shot with a water and/or glue solution 4 to activate the binder that's coated on the fibers. 5 Q. So if I understand it correctly, the 6 Monokote is wet when it's actually sprayed out of 7 the nozzle and some of the fibrous materials are dry 8 as they come out of the nozzle? 9 A. Right. 10 Q. What are some products that were this 11 sprayed fibrous materials, some of the names of 12 those? 13 A. The Cafco Blazeshield I mentioned. 14 Asbestos Spray I mentioned. Another one was called 15 Spray-Don , S-p-r-a-y dash D-o-n. 16 Q. Spray-Don? 17 A. That's the man's name that owned the 18 company, I guess. 19 Q. Do you know what company manufactured 20 that product? 21 A. I think it went by the name of the 22 Spray-Don Company. They've all changed names, okay, 23 and I don't know what the heck their name is now. 24 Q. So you don't know what that would be, 25 but those were different products -- different type PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 14 1 1 products from the Monokote? 2 A. Yes. 3 Q. In the spraying process, would the 4 fibrous materials -- the sprayed fiber materials 5 have more, I guess, airborne dust and fibers that 6 would be at the nozzle site in comparison to the wet 7 product? 8 A. Yes, very much so. 9 Q. When you heard Mr.Worthington talk 10 about a description of the snow in Manhattan or 11 something, is your understanding that this was not a 12 description of a Monokote product or sprayed 13 Monokote? 14 A. That's my understanding that it was a 15 fibrous product. 16 Q. That that would be a description of a 17 product that was applied differently from the 18 Monokote product? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. You had talked a little bitabout your 21 understanding of TLVs, threshold limit values, and 22 you were asked if you had advised contractors to 23 keep exposure levels under the TLV, and you said, I 24 believe, that you didn't use that particular 25 terminology. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS O j. *3 liLLAAil 1 Did you advise them or talk to them 2 about exposure levels or dust levels? 3 A. Oh, I'd always tell the men in the 4 jobsite to -- they should wear a mask. 5 Q. And did you do this whenever you went 6 to jobsites,and worked either with the contractors 7 or the individual applicators? 8 A. Yes, some of them. 9 Q. You were asked if there was a safety 10 inspector at the plant -- the Dallas plant. You 11 said not someone called that particular title or by 12 that name. 13 Were there individuals who were 14 concerned with the safety and health aspects of the 15 plant workers at the plant site to your knowledge? 16 A. The plant manager's realm included 17 that. 18 Q. You said that you spent a lot of your 19 time in the early '70s with the roof deck business? 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. And I'm not sure exactly what that is 22 in comparison to what we've been talking about 23 today. 24 A. The Texas Vermiculite Company and Grace 25 marketed a Zonolite brand product for roof deck PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS O uL*. .n * 1 applicators to apply. 2 (At this time, Mr. Dougall left the deposition room. 3 4 A. And it is a lightweight aggregate, 5 either expanded vermiculite or expanded perlite 6 which is mixed with Portland cement and water -7 Q. All right. 8 A. -- making a low densityinsulating 9 concrete. 10 Q. Okay. And how was that used? 11 A. It would be pumped up onto permanent 12 metal forms and leveled off, as concrete is normally 13 finished, and it would make a structural deck of 14 lightweight fire resistant properties. 15 Q. This was not an asbestos product as far 16 as you know? is that correct? 17 A. There never was anyasbestos added to 18 any of those products. 19 Q. So in the '70s when you were dealing 20 with -- you said that you were selling Monokote in 21 relationship to some buildings but that you spent a 22 great deal of your time with the roof deck business, 23 then that was a totally separate type of product and 24 a separate usage of products? 25 A. Separate set of customers. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 14 4 1 Q. In talking about, I believe, what's 2 been marked Exhibit 2, that's the first page that, I 3 believe, that you talked about in this job list -- 4 A. Uh-huh. 5 Q. -- the figures that are written on 6 there are not in your handwriting, are they, the 7 figures meaning the ones by the buildings 8 themselves, the 20,000, the 85,000? 9 A. I believe they are. 10 Q. Are they? Do you recall when you put 11 those figures on that piece of paper? 12 A. Yes, I'm going to say it was 1987 or 13 thereabout in creating some kind of an idea of just 14 how much potential market there was for a 15 replacement fireproofing product. 16 Q. Where did you get that figure for The 17 Apparel Mart when you have 20,000 there? What did 18 that represent? 19 A. That would represent number of bags of 20 material that was originally installed as 21 fireproofing. 22 Q. Did you have an invoice or something 23 that you got that from, or was that your estimate? 24 A. No, that was always the terminology. 25 Gee, that was a nice job. It was 40,000 bags. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS si'irnuA u onL,nAi'< J- t 3 1 People remember those figures. 2 Q. This is something that you took from 3 your own memory? 4 A. And other people's. 5 Q. Well, I really need to try to figure 6 out where you got the information. That was put on 7 there in 1987, which was not the same time that the 8 document was generated; is that correct? 9 A. That's correct. 10 Q. You had had the document for awhile -11 A. Right. 12 Q. -- before that? 13 A. That was not its original purpose. 14 Q. So what you did was in 1987 to go back 15 and either from your memory or maybe from talking to 16 somebody else, from somebody else's memory, you 17 attempted to put what you estimated to be the bags 18 that were used in that particular job? 19 A. Right, and Ralph McCloud used to have 20 some fairly accurate records of that just... 21 Q. Did you look at his records when you 22 did this? 23 A. I'm sure I did. One of the reasons was 24 after it was all said and done, the people that 25 didn't do the job would say. How much did XYZ PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 14 6 1 company buy for that. They beat me so bad, I don't 2 know how they could survive. How much did they buy? 3 So we would give that information out to the 4 unsuccessful bidders. 5 Q. Did you sit down and do this all in one 6 day when you put the numbers of bags by the job? 7 A. Probably in the same week. 8 Q. Okay. Do you have any independent 9 memory today of how you particularly picked the 10 number to put at a specific building? In other 11 words, do you know which ones came from your memory 12 or which ones came from the memory of someone else 13 or which one came from a record you might have 14 reviewed? 15 A. No, I couldn't answer that for sure. 16 Q. So what you're saying is that these 17 came from one of those locations, to the best of 18 your memory today? 19 A. Right. I would call people that did 20 the job perhaps, or... 21 Q. But you don't know which -- like, in 22 The Petroleum Tower Addition, for example, that says 23 12,000, you don't know whether you called somebody 24 or whether you remembered it or whether there was a 25 record that said it or whether Ralph McCloud said it PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 14 7 1 or what; is that correct? 2 MR. WORTHINGTON: Object to 3 leading. 4 A. Right. I couldn't testify where that 5 information came from in every case. I might have 6 had -- some people had a lot of records. Storbeck, 7 Gregory & Dillard was big on records. 8 Q. Okay. But the Storbeck, Gregory & 9 Dillard people, as far as you know, did they furnish 10 any of this particular information for you to put 11 down on this piece of paper? 12 A. I'm sure they had to. 13 Q. But do you know which ones? 14 A. No, I don't. 15 Q. Okay. Because you can't testify today 16 specifically which ones of these jobs were Storbeck 17 Gregory jobs, can you? 18 A. Some of them. 19 Q. Some of them you could -20 A. Yes. 21 Q. -- and some of them you couldn't? 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. I notice that you don't have numbers by 24 all of these. Just, for example, on page two of the 25 Dallas County -- this is page two now of Exhibit 3 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 14 8 1 -- that you have numbers only by a few of these? 2 A. And those don't appear to be my 3 numbers. 4 Q. Okay. Do you know who wrote that down 5 there? 6 A. That looks like Ralph McCloud's. 7 Q. But do you know that for sure? 8 A. No, I don't. 9 Q. Do you know why the rest of these 10 buildings don't have numbers by them? 11 A. I suspect because nobody really knew at 12 that point in time. 13 Q. But do you really now specifically why? 14 That's your best guess? 15 A. If you take 100 buildings and look at 16 them, multi-story buildings, they all have fairly 17 close numbers per floor. A 20 story building is 18 going to take so much whether it's built here or 19 Detroit or wherever. 20 Q. Well, that's really what I'm getting 21 at. Are these numbers an estimate or are they 22 specific from a record? 23 A. They're estimates. 24 Q. Okay. And some of these estimates are 25 some that you made on that Exhibit 2 and then some PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 1 are apparently made by someone else because they're 2 in a different handwriting? 3 A. Correct. 4 Q. I believe that you went through what 5 has been marked Exhibit 3 and put some marks on that 6 exhibit; is that correct? 7 A. Yes. 8 Q. And the marks on that exhibit have to 9 do with what you have personal knowledge of? 10 A. That's correct. 11 Q. The rest on this master list, is it 12 correct to say, that you don't know what products 13 were put in these buildings and when they were put 14 in and who sold the products to the contractor for 15 these buildings? 16 MR. WORTHINGTON: Object to 17 leading and compound. 18 A. The best answer I could give you is 19 this started out as a Monokote job list. 20 Q. All right. But that'swhat you know 21 about it. You don't have any personal knowledge 22 about what was done on these individual jobs, do 23 you? 24 A. Just the ones I marked. 25 Q. Okay. And whoever compiled the list PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 150 1 and whatever their criteria was for putting 2 something on the list, you don't have any personal 3 knowledge about that; is that correct? 4 A. Again, this was done as part of a piece 5 that was demonstrating the wide acceptance of the 6 Monokote product. 7 Q. Okay. And the only ones that you know 8 about personally are the ones you've marked? The 9 only jobs you know about personally are the ones 10 you've marked? 11 A. On 12 Q. on Exhibit 3. 13 A. -- Exhibit 3 and Exhibit 2. 14 Q. You said that Monokote 3 when you would 15 observe it being mixed on the job would generally be 16 mixed in the open; is that correct? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. Would that be in the outside? 19 A. Outside the building linenormally. 20 Q. All right. What sort of container 21 would the mixture be in? 22 A. The bags would beoff-loaded from the 23 van, and they would be sliced or broken into a 24 mortar mixer which has turning paddles to mix it 25 with water. That mixer would then be rotated and PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 151 1 dumped into a pump. 2 Q. Okay. And by the time the mixture was 3 put into the pump area, it was a wet mixture? 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. And I think you stated that when you 6 had applied Monokote 3, that you -- that people who 7 were the applicators applying the Monokote wore dust 8 masks? 9 MR. WORTHINGTON: Object to 10 form. No personal knowledge. Calls 11 for speculation. Leading. 12 A. Men would wear masks of some kind of 13 their own initiative many, many, many times. 14 Q. Did the applicator contractors, as far 15 as you observed, have dust masks available for their 16 employees? 17 A. I'd have to say yes. 18 Q. Was that throughout the period of time 19 that you were selling Monokote products? 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. I believe you testified that you had 22 worked for W.R. Grace until just a few months ago; 23 is that right? 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. And you soldMonokote products from PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 152 1 1970 or so, from the time whenever you started -2 when did you start selling Monokote products? 3 A. 1966. 4 Q. 1966 through when? 5 A. Up until early '81, at which time I 6 left and became an applicator of Monokote products 7 and through early or spring of 1983. 8 Q. What do you mean you became an 9 applicator? 10 A. I would -- I went into business with a 11 customer and we applied the products. 12 Q. So you had a business yourself where 13 you would apply the Monokote products or some other 14 products -- 15 A. Right. 16 Q. -- and fireproofing? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. And at that time, in 1981 through 1983, 19 you were aware of the Monokote products and you were 20 aware of the kind of formulation that the products 21 had? 22 A. Basically. 23 Q. Because you had sold these products -- 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. -- for sometime? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 153 1 A. That's correct. 2 Q. And when you were an applicator, did 3 you work around the products yourself? 4 A. Yes, I did -5 Q. And you -- 6 A. -- from time to time. 7 Q. From time to time. And then you came 8 back in '83 or 4 to sell the products again? 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. For another how many years? 11 A. Eight years. 12 Q. Another eight years. And you did not 13 believe that the products you were selling were a 14 hazard, did you? 15 A. At that point in time? 16 Q. Yes, sir. 17 A. No, I did not believe they were 18 hazardous. 19 Q. Did you wear respirators when you would 20 apply the product in 1981? 21 A. I guess I didn't apply any at that 22 time. I would be around the operation. 23 Q. When you had that application business, 24 would you recommend to the people -- the men that 25 you might have hired to apply the product to wear PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 154 1 masks in a dusty situation? 2 A. I would provide them. 3 Q. And you did provide them? 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. And were the applicators, themen who 6 were applying the product, in your opinion, did they 7 wear the dust masks if they were in a dusty 8 situation? 9 A. Yeah, they would. 10 Q. You didn't need to tell them at that 11 point that they should or shouldn't? Would they do 12 it on their own accord? 13 A. Most of them would. 14 Q. Do you think that theapplicators, the 15 men who had been working with these products, were 16 familiar with the formulation of the products and 17 what the products contained? 18 MR. WORTHINGTON: I'll object as 19 vague, calls for speculation. 20 Q. If you know. 21 A. I don't think one out of 100 knew. 22 Q. Now? 23 A. Now they do. 24 Q. Knowing what you knew aboutasbestos 25 from reading the Selikoff articles in 1968 on PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 15 5 1 through to 1973 when asbestos was removed from the 2 products, you continued to work with the company and 3 to sell the products; is that correct? 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. And you didn't believe that you were 6 selling a product that would be injurious to the 7 health of an applicator, did you? 8 MR. WORTHINGTON: Object to 9 leading. 10 A. Not after '73. 11 Q. Or before '73? 12 MR. WORTHINGTON: Object to 13 leading. 14 A. We all had serious concerns before '73. 15 Q. They were attempting to, at that point, 16 after you learned about the Selikoff article, you 17 were -- the company, to your knowledge, was 18 attempting to find substitute products for the 19 asbestos in the Honokote; is that correct? 20 MR. WORTHINGTON: Object to 21 loading. 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. You can go ahead and answer? 24 A. Yes, they were trying to find another 25 way to formulate it. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 156 1 Q. In the plant in Dallas, to the extent 2 that you were in there, were you aware of various 3 dust control measures that were put into practice 4 through the years that you were in that area? 5 A. Yes. 6 MR. WORTHINGTON: Object to lack 7 of foundation as to what is meant by 8 dust control measures. 9 Q. What dust control measures were in the 10 plant? 11 A. I think housecleaning was the most 12 obvious thing. 13 Q. And how was that -- 14 A. You could see it taking place with 15 vacuums and different types. 16 Q. What about other ventilationsystems 17 that were put into place? 18 A. There was always some sort of baghouse 19 operation. I believe the City of Dallas would 20 monitor some of the emissions from time to time with 21 a camera type device, and so the doors were always 22 open just about year round for ventilation. 23 Q. Were you aware of any other ventilation 24 systems that were put in on the equipment? 25 A. I think there was an obvious fan here PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 157 1 or there. I can't recall a system being put in 2 specifically for nuisance dust. 3 Q. Do you know whether any air sampling 4 was done in the plant? Were you aware of it? 5 A. I'm not aware if the city did any. I 6 know that people from the Grace division 7 headquarters in Cambridge would occasionally come by 8 in the most recent years. 9 Q. And do monitoring? 10 A. And do some monitoring. 11 Q. You were asked a question about whether 12 there were -- the W.R. Grace did any research 13 regarding tremolite, and you said that you thought 14 there had been some done, but you don't know when 15 the various research was done on tremolite, do you? 16 A. No, I don't. 17 Q. As far as the dates? 18 A. No, I don't. 19 Q. You were talking about the people you 20 contacted for sales, and you said there were 21 material dealers, and is that Blue Diamond? Would 22 that be an example? 23 A. That would be an example of one, yes. 24 Q. And then you said roof deck 25 applicators, and you would be talking about, at that PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 158 1 point, the roof decking material you've described? 2 A. Correct, not Monokote fireproofing. 3 Q. Then you talked about masonry 4 contractors? 5 A. Yes. 6 Q. They would not be people who would 7 purchase Monokote, would they? 8 A. Correct, they would not. 9 Q. And then you talked about plastering 10 contractors, and an example would be the Storbeck & 11 Gregory group? 12 A. Yes. 13 Q. And the plastering contractors, then, 14 would have individuals that were employed by them 15 who would do the job of application of theproduct? 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. And generally, I mean, I would assume 18 that the plastering contractors were a subcontractor 19 to some larger contractors on a job? 20 A. Almost always. 21 MS. CLARK: I believe that's all 22 the questions I have, Mr. Sheeran. 23 EXAMINATION 24 BY MR. WORTHINGTON: 25 Q. Mr. Sheeran, can you tell me what a K PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 159 1 factor is, please? 2 A. It's the value assigned the homogeneous 3 material that measures its heat flow through a one 4 inch thickness of that material. 5 Q. Generally if the K factor is low, that 6 means it's pretty good heat resistance? 7 A. Yes. 8 Q. Is a company who manufactures 9 fireproofing materials always interested in trying 10 to lower the K factor? 11 A. Not necessarily. 12 Q. Is a low K factor generally a good 13 thing to a customer who wants to fireproof the 14 building? 15 A. It's seldom of applicable value. 16 Q. What was the K factor for MK-3? 17 A. As I recall, it was somewhere in the 18 neighborhood of a 0.70. Somewhere from 0.61 to 19 0.81. 20 Q. Did the K factor change for MK-5? 21 A. I don't think so. 22 Q. So the MK-3 and the MK-5 still contain 23 the same fireproofing or heat resistance properties; 24 isn't that right? 25 A. Yes, because Underwriters Laboratory PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 160 1 gave them equivalency across the board on all 2 listings. 3 Q. The attorney for W.R. Grace asked you 4 whether the new asbestos-free Monokote would still 5 provide the same heat protection as the asbestos 6 containing product. Did -7 MS. CLARK: I object to that. 8 Q. Did the products -9 MS. CLARK: -- that's not the -10 Q. -- have any 11 MS. CLARK: -- question I asked. 12 MR. WORTHINGTON: Well, don't 13 interrupt me when I'm asking a 14 question, please. 15 MS. CLARK: I thought you were 16 through, I'm sorry. You paused. 17 MR. WORTHINGTON: I don't do 18 that very often. 19 MS. CLARK: I know. That's why 20 I thought you were through. 21 MR. WORTHINGTON: Let me reask 22 the question. 23 Q. Did the asbestos-free Monokote 24 fireproofing provide the same heat resistance to 25 steel beams and skyscrapers that the PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 161 1 asbestos-containing Monokote provided? 2 A. Yes, it did. 3 Q. Did the customers of asbestos-free 4 Monokote experience, to your knowledge, any less 5 protection in the event of a fire with the 6 application of the asbestos-free Monokote 7 fireproofing? 8 A. No, they were quite equivalent. 9 Q. Before W.R. Grace began manufacturing 10 the asbestos-free Monokote, the company had still 11 received complaints from customers regarding the 12 ability of the MK-3 to stick to the steel surface; 13 isn't that right? 14 A. Occasionally, yes. 15 Q. What kind of problems or complaints did 16 you get from customers about the MK-3 product and 17 its use on the job? 18 A. If a customer -- applicator customer 19 had a complaint about the MK-3 product, one of us 20 would go out and see what they were doing right and 21 wrong, and it was usually self-inflicted. 22 Q. You would agree that the MK-3 wasn't a 23 miracle product, that it still generated some 24 problems and your customers occasionally did 25 complain about it? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 162 1 MS. CLARK: I object to the form 2 of the question. 3 A. It could be applied wrong, yes. 4 Q. Okay. Would you also agree that the 5 Underwriters Laboratory did not research the 6 potential health hazards associated with asbestos 7 exposure in humans or any laboratory animals? 8 MS. CLARK: I object to the form 9 of the question. I don't think there's 10 been a proper foundation to all the 11 various testing that Underwriters 12 Laboratory does, and I think that goes 13 beyond this particular witness's 14 information and expertise. 15 A. Well, I'm extremely familiar with 16 Underwriters Laboratories testing and procedures and 17 I have been for a long time, and no, they don't care 18 what's in it. 19 Q. All they're concerned about is what the 20 K factor is and what kind of heat resistance the 21 product will provide under certain conditions? 22 A. They test and report the results. 23 Q. To you knowledge, they don't test any 24 health consequences associated with asbestos or any 25 other material? PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 16 3 1 A. They test flammability of products. 2 Q. Pardon me? 3 A. They test flammability of products. 4 Q. Okay. And to your knowledge, the City 5 of Dallas certainly didn't invest any money to 6 research the potential health hazards associated 7 with Monokote MK-3? 8 A. No. 9 Q. And when the city adopts a building 10 code, don't they just generally adopt wholesale the 11 designs and specs that are recommended by an 12 architectural firm or by a company? 13 MS. CLARK: I object to the form 14 of the question. I don't think there's 15 sufficient foundation for him to say 16 what a city does when they adopt a fire 17 code or adopt other sorts of 18 regulations and codes. I think it's a 19 vague question. It's too general. 20 Q. Would you agree that the private sector 21 has an influence on the city when the city adopts a 22 fire code? 23 MS. CLARK: I object to the form 24 of the question. It's vague. What 25 an influence would be and what the PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 164 1 private sector would be are undefined. 2 A. It can be political. 3 Q. And the city generally does not -4 MS. CLARK: I would object to 5 the responsiveness of the answer to the 6 vague question. 7 Q. To your knowledge, did the City of 8 Dallas perform any independent research or 9 investigations before they adopted the charter and 10 the City Fire Code? 11 A. Not to my knowledge. 12 Q. And to your knowledge, did the City of 13 Dallas and their fire code require that fireproofing 14 materials contain asbestos fiber? 15 A. Did the city require it? 16 Q. Yeah. 17 A. No. 18 Q. The city simply required that 19 fireproofing materials provide a low K factor? 20 A. Well, the city requires that the 21 materials provide a demonstrated ability to perform. 22 Most of the city building officials are members of 23 -- every city of any size has building officials 24 within the building inspection department that 25 belong to one of the code bodies that writes it, PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 163 1 such as ICDO, so they're not unfamiliar with what's 2 coming down the pipe. 3 Q. If the company is notified that a 4 product that the company is selling may present 5 health hazards to customers or bystanders, do you 6 think that company ought to, at that stage, begin 7 investing money in the research and development of a 8 substitute material for that product? 9 MS. CLARK: I object to the form 10 of the question. I think it calls for 11 speculation on the part of this 12 witness, and there's lack of 13 foundation. 14 A. I think they should, yes. 15 Q. So if a company is notified, for 16 example, that asbestos poses a health hazard to 17 customers or users or applicators or mill workers, 18 do you think they ought to, at that stage if not 19 before, begin removing the offensive asbestos 20 material and investing money in the research and 21 development of a substitute material? 22 MS. CLARK: I object to the form 23 of the question because it's a multiple 24 part question and you talk about four 25 or five different classifications of PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 166 1 people and you've asked for two or i | 2 three different remedies. I think it's 3 a compound question. Object to the 4 form. 5 A. I believe Grace demonstrated that they 6 wanted to remedy the problem and did. 7 MR. WORTHINGTON: I object to 8 nonresponsive. 9 Q. If a company is notified that a product 10 that they are selling to the public poses a 11 potential health threat, do you believe that that 12 company ought to stop selling that product? 13 MS. CLARK: I object to the form 14 of the question. 15 A. I believe they should stop. 16 Q. Do you believe that if a company is 17 notified of a danger associated with their product, 18 then they ought to also begin investing money into 19 the research and development of a substitute 20 material? 21 A. I believe they should. 22 Q. So if W.R. Grace had been notified that 23 asbestos presented a serious health hazard in the 24 1950s, do you think at that stage they should have 25 begun investing money in the research and PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 167 1 development of a substitute material? I 2 MS. CLARK: I object to the form 3 of the question. I think it assumes 4 facts that aren't in evidence, that 5 aren't going to be in evidence and 6 it's, I think, a vague question that 7 goes beyond this individual's ability 8 to answer as a fact witness. It calls 9 for a legal conclusion. 10 A. I don't know how to answer that. I'm 11 sorry. It's very similar to your previous question, 12 so in that sense, I think they should do something 13 to rectify a known problem. 14 Q. You mentioned, Mr. Sheeran, that you 15 remember some air sampling tests being conducted 16 here in Dallas at the plant; is that right? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. Was that in theearly '70s? 19 A. I believe I thought it was 1974. 20 Q. Okay. On how many occasions had you 21 seen an official of W.R. Grace at the plant 22 conducting an air sample or dust count? 23 A. I couldn't say. 24 Q. Was it more than once do you think? 25 A. Yes. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 168 1 Q. Do you know who would have custody of 2 those air sampling reports? 3 A. I sure don't. 4 Q. Did you ever learn of the results of 5 the tests? 6 A. I never saw any printed results. 7 Q. Did anyone ever relate to you orally 8 what the results were? 9 A. I don't believe so. 10 MR. WORTHINGTON: I'd like to go 11 ahead and request at this time that 12 W.R. Grace produce all air sampling 13 reports that were performed at the W.R. 14 Grace plant here in Dallas, and I have 15 requested that information in several 16 sets of interrogatories which I had 17 previously served on counsel for Grace. 18 I have specifically requested all 19 industrial hygiene reports, all air 20 sampling, all studies done in Dallas 21 and elsewhere and so far have been 22 stonewalled in seeking that 23 information. So without complaining, I 24 just want to make my request on the 25 record, and I have no more questions. PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 169 1 THE WITNESS: I have the feeling 2 that this won't be the last time I'm 3 deposed on this subject, so I would 4 like to get a transcript. 5 MS. CLARK: I do have one other 6 question, and I think that we need to, 7 as far as requests on documents, you 8 need to serve an appropriate request 9 for documents, and, you know, I'll 10 comply with the Rules. 11 MR. WORTHINGTON: I have. 12 MS. CLARK: I'll see what 13 document request you have out there. 14 EXAMINATION 15 BY MS. CLARK: 16 Q. This is my last question I believe. I 17 believe that you have stated in response to one of 18 Mr. Worthington's questions, did I understand you 19 correctly that you said that you believed that Grace 20 wanted to remedy the situation with the Monokote 21 product and that they did remedy it as far as you're 22 concerned? 23 MR. WORTHINGTON: Object to lack 24 of foundation. There's no foundation 25 as to which members of -- officials of PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 17 0 1 Grace you're referring to and the date 2 and time period. 3 A. I believe they did what they did 4 because they were being crucified in the marketplace 5 by the competitors. 6 Q. Do you think that they did remedy the 7 problem and did -- I thought that's what you said in 8 response to the question? 9 A. Okay. Based on what I know about the, 10 quote, "tremolite issue," I believe that the product 11 is a great hazard since the removal of the asbestos 12 because of its characteristics. It' s a fairly 13 durable product for one that is as 1 ow density as it 14 is. 15 MS. CLARK: I don't have 16 anything further. Thank you. 17 MR. WORTHINGTON: Thank you, Mr. 18 Sheeran. 19 THE WITNESS: You're welcome. 20 (End of proceedings.) 21 (Signature of witness waived by agreement of all parties) 22 23 24 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 171 1 COUNTY OF DALLAS * 2 STATE OF TEXAS * 3 I, Denise M. Mallia, Certified 4 Shorthand Reporter in and for the State of Texas, do 5 hereby certify that the foregoing 170 pages are a 6 true, complete and correct transcript of the 7 proceedings had before me on October 4, 1991. 8 Further certification requirements 9 pursuant to Rules 205 and 206 of the Texas Rules of 10 Civil Procedure will be certified to after they have 11 occurred. 12 GIVEN UNDER MY HAND AND SEAL OF OFFICE 13 on this the 11th day of October, 1991. 14 15 16 Denise M. Mallia, Cs5 #3590 17 Certified Shorthand Reporter In and for the State of Texas, 18 8140 Walnut Hill Lane Suite 310, LB 15 19 Dallas, Texas 75231 20 My commission expires: 12-31-92 21 22 23 24 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 1 CERTIFICATION PURSUANT TO RULES 205 AND 206 2 NO. 91-1760-H 3 H. WALLY SHIPLEY AND FAYE * IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF SHIPLEY; WELDON COOK AND * 4 BILLYE COOK; VIRGEL LEON * ZIMMERMAN AND RUTH * 5 ZIMMERMAN; HERBERT * WILLIAMS AND INEZ WILLIAMS;* 6 ARTHUR JAMES DAVIS; and. * DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS J.R. GENTLE 7 * * VS . 8 * * ARMSTRONG WORLD INDUSTRIES,* 9 INC., ET AL. * 160TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT 10 11 12 CERTIFICATE TO ORAL DEPOSITION 13 OF 14 STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 15 16 17 I, Denise M. Mallia, Certified Shorthand 18 Reporter in and for the State of Texas and the 19 deposition officer for the deposition of the 20 above-named witness, do hereby certify to the 21 following: 22 1) That the witness was duly sworn by me; 2 3 2) That the transcript is a true record of 24 the testimony given by the witness on October 4, 25 19 91; PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 17 3 1 3) That the charge for preparation of the 2 completed deposition transcript and any copies of 3 exhibits is $and is to be paid by 4 the Plaintiffs; 5 4) That the signature of the witness was 6 waived by agreement of the parties and the witness; 7 5) That the original deposition was 8 transmitted to Mr. Worthington, the person who 9 asked the first question appearing in the deposition 10 transcript for safekeeping or use at trial. 11 6) That pursuant to information obtained 12 at the time said testimony was taken, the following 13 includes all parties of record: 14 15 MR. ROGER G. WORTHINGTON Silber, Pearlman & Worthington 16 1000 Highland Park Place 4514 Cole Avenue, LB 34 17 Dallas, Texas 75205 18 FOR THE PLAINTIFFS 19 MS. SANDRA F. CLARK 20 Mehaffy& Weber 2615 Calder Avenue 21 P.O. Box 16 Beaumont, Texas 77704 22 23 FOR THE DEFENDANT, W.R. GRACE & COMPANY 24 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 1 MS. ELIZABETH M. THOMPSON Butler & Binion 2 1500 First Interstate Bank Plaza Houston, Texas 77002 3 FOR THE DEFENDANT, 4 OWENS-CORNING FIBERGLAS CORPORATION 5 6 MR. GARY D. ELLISTON DeHay & Blanchard 7 Plaza of the Americas 600 North Pearl Street 8 2500 South Tower, LB 201 Dallas, Texas 75201-2880 9 FOR THE DEFENDANTS, 10 GAF CORPORATION, A.P. GREEN INDUSTRIES, INC., 11 NATIONAL GYPSUM COMPANY, U.S. GYPSUM COMPANY and 12 ARMSTRONG WORLD INDUSTRIES, INC. 13 MR. THOMAS F. DOUGALL 14 Bowers Orr & Robertson 1401 Main Street, Suite 1100 15 P.O. BOX 7307 Columbia, South Carolina 29202 16 FOR THE DEFENDANT, 17 PROKO INDUSTRIES, INC. 18 19 7) That a copy of this certificate was 20 served on all parties shown herein pursuant to Rule 21 21a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. 22 GIVEN UNDER MY HAND AND SEAL OF OFFICE on 23 this the 11th day of October, 1991. 24 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 17 5 1 Denise M. Mallia, CSR #3590 2 Certified Shorthand Reporter In and for the State of Texas, 3 8140 Walnut Hill Lane Suite 310 LB 15 4 Dallas, Texas 75231 5 My commission expires: 12-31-92 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS LAWYER'S NOTES TELEPHONE (214) 528-2000 SlLBER, PEARLMAN & WORTHINGTON A PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION Attorneys end Counselors 1000 HIGHLAND PARK PL>CE 4514 COLE AVENUE. LB 34 DALLAS. TEXAS 75205 TELECOPIER (214) 522-7400 September 26, 1991 VIA CERTIFIED MAIL. RRR AND U.S. MAIL ( P 553 335 921 ) Mr. Steve Sheeran 2315 West Brook Drive Carrollton, Texas 75007 Re: Your deposition on October 4. 1991 at 10:00 a.m. Dear Mr. Sheeran: Enclosed please find a Notice of Intention to Take Oral Depositions Duces Tecum. Your deposition will take place at our office which is located at 4514 Cole Avenue, Suite 1000 (Highland Park Place Building), Dallas, Texas 75205 on Friday, October 4, 1991 at 10:00 a.m. Should you have any questions or comments concerning this matter, please do not hesitate to < /tk Enel. letters.tek\sheeran.It2 IN RE: ALL ASBESTOS- IN THE DISTRICT COURTS OF RELATED PERSONAL INJURY, SURVIVAL AND WRONGFUL DEATH CASES PENDING DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS OR TO BE FILED IN DISTRICT COURTS IN DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS 162ND JUDICIAL DISTRICT AMENDED NOTICE OF INTENTION TO TAKE ORAL DEPOSITIONS DUCES TECUM TO: Defendant, W.R. GRACE & CO.-CONN., by and through its attorney of record, Sandra F. Clark, MeHaffy & Weber, 2615 Calder Avenue, P. O. Box 16, Beaumont, Texas 77704. PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that, pursuant to Rule 200 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, present and future Plaintiffs represented by Silber, Pearlman & Worthington in the asbestos personal injury litigation referenced above, will take the oral depositions of the following witnesses listed by Defendant W.R. Grace & Co.-Conn.: Name Date Time Curtis Gibson October 3, 1991 10:00 a.m. Steve Sheeran October 4, 1991 10:00 a.m. Said depositions will take place at Silber, Pearlman & Worthington, 1000 Highland Park Place, 4514 Cole Avenue, Suite 1000, Dallas, Texas 75205, before Pritchett & Romans, 8140 Walnut Hill Lane, Suite 130, Dallas, Texas 75231. The oral depositions will continue from day to day until completed. Mr. Gibson and Mr. Sheeran will be asked to testify, among other things, about the sale of products on Exhibit "A", among other asbestos-containing products, for use in the buildings on Exhibit "B", among other places in and around Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, in addition to other issues relating to the manufacture, distribution, marketing, testing, application, removal, and sales Page 1 of asbestos-containing products. The witnesses are asked to bring to the deposition the documents identified in Exhibit "C" . This amended notice replaces the notice of September 18, 1991. Respectfully submitted, SILBER, PEARLMAN & WORTHINGTON 1000 Highland Park Place 4514 Cole Avenue, LB 34 Dallas, Texas 75205-4185 (214) 528-2000 Jfcbgfer G. Worthing ton State Bar No^/22010100 COUNSEL FOR PLAINTIFFS CERTIFICATE OF CONFERENCE Counsel for W.R. Grace & Co.-Conn, has agreed to attend the above depositions. CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE The undersigned certifies that a true and correct of the foregoing document has been served on counsel for W.R. Grace & Co.Conn. by via telecopy and certified mail, return receipt requested, this 26th day of September, and to all other known counsel of record by U.S. Mail, on the 26th daly of SS^^Btetemmbberr, 1991. Roger G. WWoorrtthhington Page 2 Grace, W.R. & Co Last update OL'/Z ',!") Products manufactured by Grace, W.n. & Co. Product Name Mfg. Y eat s _ Asbestos Content type Warning trademark Picture Label Number Number t07 Cements, Adlieslves, Ooilor Coalings High f Itmilnling r>iirn| Zonolile High IcmpeinhifH Crtnmi in 15 in; i rrjn 1 n; t > |<l% ?o% Cl' f ;r 109 Plasters. Protective Coalintis, Rrepioolinti. Compounds, Paints Ari-7.onolite te*1ue Econo-Wfille 65 Econo White 70 fir-lex Oun Crftt Sprny Snrfacor 1 li Sorb Acotnllcnl rinsler rrilconsllc rrtl1# Top f'crlle* Poly Teillex Tolycoarse Spray Stnlncei Peiliex Super ho Perllex SupcrHQ Toq PfillC* Suprv-40 Pnlile rerllex Super HO Poly Terllex Super HO Polycoarse Terllex SuperHO SAV "'eillex Super HO Spray Suilncer lasreitnx Hep Coal Mo. 3 Prep Coal No. < Spra-Wyl Super AO Veisakote *1^ 1055 toru 1955 lorn - I0,\1 1973- -1074 .to;:i .to/n -1979 19 7n 1973 -1073 1973 1973 1973 -1973 1973 1973 -1973 153!. t r% H% 17% 7% 5"'rr 535, 1 1% G% 7% 5% 53!, G% G% 5% c:v CY <;y CY CY cy CY cy CY CY CY CY CY CY CY Z-tex Z-lex? Z-tex ? Super Wliile Zono-Couslic Zono-Couslie (MK-2) Zono-Cousllc 1 Zono-Cousllc 2 Zono-Couslic 3 Zono-Cousllc Type Z Zonolile Acoustical Plastic/Plaster X" Zonolile Ooard Of F.ducnlion texture Zonolile rinlslr Coal (Uecoraloi's Wliile) Zonolile rinisli Coal (Exlra Maid) Zonolile Mono kole (MK-I) Zonolile Mono kole (MK-3) Zonolile Mono-Kola riieproollng (MK) Zonolile Monokole 5(Back) \/ Zonolile Monokote 5(rionl)./\ Zonolile Plaster 'X^ Zonolile Spra-lnsulnllon (MK ?) Zonolile Spra-tex (Extra Maid) 1959 1973 long 1073 19591973 1959-1973 1959-1973 1959-1973 I9A5-I97? 19521950 197-1 1SN3M974 195ft- I9G9 1959 <973 M% MS, 14% 14% 14% nr. 133!. M% M% ?or. I23i 13% 13% 20% M% CY CY CY CY CY CY CY CY CY CY CY CY CY CY CY 1900-197? I9GM97? 12% 32% CY CY 993595 AU J2A 799396 An ?IA M9C HOC l?<'C DOWNTOWN DALLAS BUILDINGS San Jacinto Tower Trammell Crow Center Plaza of the Americas Skyway Tower Southland Center Hartford Buildiny Arco Building (Arco Tower Office Bldg.) Fairmont Hotel First Interstate Bank Tower (First National Dank) Foley's Dallas Times Herald NCNB Texas Elm Place Thanksgiving Tower NCNB Texas Center One, Center Two and Center Three First City Tower/ First National Dank Tower Facific Center^ Momentum Place' One Main Place VRenaissance Tower Neiman Marcus Dallas Power and Light Continental Building Dallas Public Library Dallas City Mall Dallas County Courthouse Founders Square Earle Cabeil Federal Building Medical Arts Building The Republic Bank Building Sanger Brothers Mayflower Building (Fidelity UNion Life Bldg.) Dallas Morning News Mercantile Bank Republic Bank ^Dallas Apparrel Mart World Trade Center Aerospace Building (LTV Corp.) Blue Cross/Blue Shield Gibralter Insurance Company LTV Building Exchange Park Shopping Center Market Hall LMS Building Melrose Hotel Music Hall/Fair Park Braniff Building Criswell Building St. Paul Tower Sheraton Hotel Monroe Building (t Diamond Shamrock Buj Iding First Allied Bank Dldq SMU, Dallas Armstrong Cor); Bank of Dallas Building Bell Telephone Company Bishop Baptist CoJJeqo Bryan Street Tower Campbell Building Rio Grande Insurance Building City of Dallas Municipal Building Republic Towers Records Building Prestonwood Mali. Old Magnolia Building Oil and Gas BuiJding Noel Page Building North Park shopping Center Hundet Cork Company Monroe Duilding Mobil Building Mayfair Building Lowes Anatole Hotel Lockwood Shopping Center Lincoln Plaza Lennox Hotel Hilton Hotel on Mockingbird St. Gibralter Savings Fair Park Auditorium El Centro College LIGHT INDUSTRIAL Dr. Pepper Plant Lone Star Gas Co. EDS Texas Instruments Proctor & Gamble Frito Lay E-Systems/Lufkin Aircraft, Garland International Harvester Atlantic Refinery Eastman Kodak Company Lone Star Gas Company Western Electric Mobil Oil Refinery, Ft. Worth Phillips Refinery, Phillips, Tx Owens Corning Fiberglas Plant, Wnxahachie Bomber Plant, Ft- Worth Certainteed Corporation, Wichita Certainteed Roofing, Dallas Coca Cola Bottling Co. Decker Meats, Garland General Dynamics, Ft. worth Kraft Food Company, Dallas National Gypsum Warehouse, Da.l J ns Oscar Meyer riant Pollick Paper Company Texas Industries, Dallas Thompson Can Company, Grand Prairie Trinity Portland Cement, Dallas Draniff Terminal, Love Field Ruberoid Plant HOSPITALS Baylor Hospital Parkland Methodist John Peter Smith Presbyterian Harris Hospital, Fort Worth Flow Memorial hospital, Denton Texoma Medical Center, Denison Veteran's Hospital. Arlington Memorial Hospital Garland Memorial Hospital, Garland Dallas Osteopathic Hospital Doctor's Hospital, Dallas Medical City Hospital Southwestern Medical Center Southwest Medical School Terrell County Hospital St. Paul Hospital, Dallas ARLINGTON/FT. WORTH GM Paint Plant, Arlington General Motors, Arlington Miller Brewery, Fort Worth "y. Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport American Cyanamid, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Ft. Worth UTA Library, Arlington Bell Telephone, Grand Prairie Carswell Air Force Base, Ft. Worth T.C.U. American National Bank Arlington Memorial Hospital Center City Chemsearch Building City Jail, Ft. Worth Convention Center, Ft. Worth East Field Coll'ege, Ft. Worth East Handley Elementary School, Ft. Fort Worth Children's Hospital Worth P0WE.R_J.1P_USES Mountain Creek Powerhouse, Grand Prairie Griffin Street Powerhouse (TU Steam Power PJ nut) Lake Pay Hubbard Power Plant North Lake Powerhouse, Coppell Handley rower house, Handley (02U f Ilqwy HU) Hanley l'owerpl ant, I t. Worth Denton Powerhouse Eagle Mountain Lake Powerhouse North Main Powerhouse Lake of the Pines Powerhouse Graham Powerhouse, Graham Lake Cherokee Power Plant, Longview Western Electric, Mesquite Parkdale Powerhouse, Dallas Haskell PowerPlant, Haskell Texas Power & Light Powerhouse, Frisco Texas Power & jj.ight, Reisel Dallas Power &'Light, Northlake, Dallas Garland Power & Light, Garland Western Electric, Dallas Continental Powerhouse UTA Powerhouse, Arlington, Texas Abernathy Power Plant, Lubbock Abilene Power Plant, Abilene TP & L Powerhouse, Frisco Lavon Powerhouse (Lake Lavon) Newman Power Plant, Garland SMU Powerhouse, Dallas North Texas State Powerhouse, Denton Atlas Refinery, Shreveport Belton Power Plant, Belton, texas Big Spring Refinery, Big Spring Cason Power Plant, Pittsburg Texas Colorado City Powerhouse, Colorado City, texas Comanche Peak Nuclear Plant, Glen Rose D.F.W Powerplant Forney Road Power Plant, Dallas Fresco Power Plant, Fresco Glen Rose Power plant, Glen Rose Graham Power pLant, Graham Texas Missouri Valley Powerhouse, Amarillo Motorola Plant, Fort Worth North Dallas Power Plant North Lake Powerhouse, Carrolton Texas North Main Powerhouse, Ft. worth Parkdale Powerhouse, Dallas Sterlington Power Station, Sterlington, La Strieker Creek Power Plant,Troup Texas Trinity Steel, Ft. worth SHIPYARDS & REFINERIES Drown Shipyard, Raytown Todd Shipyard, Galveston American oi.l Refinery, Texas City Arco Refinery, Houston Bethlehem Steel Shipyard, Beaumont Consolidated Shipbuilding, Oranqe Crystal Refinery, Longview Gulf Refinery, Houston Lone Star SteeJ Mill, Danger!ield Premier Refinery, Ft. Worth R.C. Refractories, Ft. Worth Reynolds Aluminum, Rockdale Swift Edible Oil Refinery, Denton Union Carbide,,Texas city Shell Chemical,1 Deer Park Exxon Refinery, Baytown SCHOOLS ALEX SPENCE SCHOOL,, DALLAS AMELIA EARHARDT SCHOOL, OAK CLIFF ARLINGTON COLLEGE ARMSTRONG SCHOOL, HIGHLAND PARK ATWELL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL, DALLAS DAYLOR DENTAL COLT,EOF,, DALLAS BISHOP BAPTIST COLLEGE, DALLAS BOUDE STORIE JUNIOR HIGH BROWN JUNIOR HIGH BRYAN ADAMS HIGH SCHOOL BURNETT SCHOOL CABELL SCHOOL, FARMERS BRANCH CAREY JUNIOR HIGH CARTER SOUTH OAK CLIFF HIGH CASA LINDA SCHOOL, DALLAS CATHOLIC CONVENT, WALNUT HILL, DALLAS CEDAR VALLEY JUNIOR COLLEGE, DALLAS CHARLES GILL ,, CITY PARK ELEMENTARY CLARA OLIVER CLINTON R. RUSSELL COIT ROAD JUNIOR HIGH COMSTOCK SCHOOL DALLAS LIBRARY DANIEL WEBSTER, DALLAS DAVID CARTER HIGH SCHOOL DEAN MEMORIAL DUNBAR SCHOOL DUNCANVILLE HIGH EAST FIELD COLLEGE, FT. WORTH EAST TEXAS STATE COLLEGE EAST TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY, GREENVILLE EDWARD TITCHE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL FOREST HILL HIGH SCHOOL FRED FLORENCE MIDDLE SCHOOL GRADY SPRUCE HIGH SCHOOL GRAND PRAR1E HIGH SCHOOL GREENVILLE SCHOOL HAWKADAY SCHOOL FOR WOMEN HIGHLAND PARK HIGH IlILLCREST JUNIOR HIGH JAMES BONHAM ELEMETARY JOHN HOOD JUNIOR HIGH JOHN IRELAND ELEMTARY JOHN Q. ADAMS ELEMENTARY JULIA FRAZIER SCHOOL KIMBALL HIGH SCHOOL L.D. BELL HIGH PINKSTON HIGH L.V. STOCKARD MIDDLE SCHOOL LEE SCHOOL LENOIR KIRK SCHOOL LINCOLN HlOH LISBON ELEMENTARY LONGFELLOW SCHOOL MACART1IUR HIGH SCHOOL MEADOWBROOK JUNIOR HIGH, FT. WORTH MOUNTAIN VIEW COLLEGE, DALLAS NEWMAN snrril SCHOOL, GARLAND NORA KIRK SCHOOL, DAI,I.AS NORTH TEXAS STATE UNLVERSITY OAK CLIFF HIGH OLIVER W. HOLMES HIGH SCHOOL FARK CITY YMCA PINKSTON HIGH SCHOOL PLANO HIGH PRESTON HIGH RICHARDSON JUNIOR HIGH RICHARDSON PIERCE HIGH SCHOOL ROBERT E. LEE ELEMENTARY ROOSEVELT HIGH RUFUS BURLESON,, ELEMENTARY SARA ZUMWALT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SAMUEL HIGH SCHOOL SKYLINE HIGH SMU TCU THOMAS JEFFERSON HIGH TEMPLE EMANUEL TEXAS WOMENS COLLEGE, DENTON UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDICAL CENTER UTA W.H. ADAMSON HIGH W.T. WHITE HIGH W.W. SAMUEL HIGH WOODROW WILSON HIGH SCHOOL Exhibit "C" REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION You are asked to bring with you to the deposition the following documents: 1. All correspondence between W.R. Grace and any contractor or supplier in the Dallas/Fort Worth area regarding the sale of any asbestos-containing products, such as those appearing on Exhibit "A". The contractors or suppliers include, but are not limited to, Storbeck & Gregory, Ray Boyd Plastering, McCrory Company, Estes & Stout, Carpenter Plastering, Fort Worth Plastering, and Blue Diamond. 2. All sales literature and brochures distributed by W.R. Grace to suppliers and contractors in the Dallas/Fort Worth area regarding asbestos products. 'n 3. All documents, including sales receipts and invoices, that reflect the purchase by any supplier or contractor of any asbestos-containing product manufactured by W.R. Grace in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. 4. Any and all documents that identify jobsites or projects in the Dallas/Fort Wortli area in which W.R. Grace asbestoscontaining products were applied, including work orders, inspection reports, plans, specifications, and/or industrial hygiene surveys. 5. All advertisements or promotional material by W.R. Grace regarding Monokote, Zonolite or other asbestos-containing products prior to 1975. 6. All instruction and/or warning labels regarding potential asbestos health hazards appearing on any containers of the asbestos products listed on Exhibit "A". 7. All industrial hygiene surveys or ambient dust counts performed from 1959 to 1978 at any manufacturing plant in Texas owned or operated by W.R. Grace, The Zonolite Company, and/or Texas Vermiculite Company regarding the presence of ambient concentrations of asbestos dust or others. 8. All government inspection reports regarding compliance with any governmental regulation of occupational exposure to asbestos dust in any plant owned or operated by W.R. Grace, The Zonolite Company, or Texas Vermiculite Company from 1959 to 1978. depos\duces tec.exc GRACE MAJOR M0N0K0TE FIREPROOFING JOBS City of Dallas 1972 - 1978 Zonolile Construction Products Division W.R. Groce & Co P.O. Box 226306 Dallas, TX 75266 (2M)637-0900 Hyatt Regency ReUnion Park Central Tower Dallas World Trade Center Northpark I & II Towers The Apparel Mart ZOjOoo Bent Tree Tower First International Building 3 Main Tower LS^ouO ^X'' South land Center Addition 2001 Bryan To.wer ;A,0^oo ^X Diamond Shamrock Tower Campbell Centre Towers W0& 'x' One Energy Square Tower .rfutO *' " " I SliOb Dallas Federal Savings & Loan Republic Bank Tower Addition 'X' Dallas Central Research Library V" Los Colinas Tower East 4226 Douglass Tower Los Colinas Tower X /Y1K-4 00- -`S Mockingbird Towers 14,000 ^JXfllll Mockingbird Tower n/ Stemmons Twin Towers 11,0100 D/FW Airport Terminals 4S(ouo Empire Stenmons Tower n,o<;0 Dallas North Plaza Tower \\,oo- Dallas North Bank & Trust 2jJ\ouo Xval ley View Bank ^"'Heritage Plaza Tower * ^><^The American Bank \ DEPOSmON EXHIBIT `Shprmn s-J TEXAS AND OKLAHOMA VERMICULITE COMPANIES REPRESENTATIVE MONO-KOTE FIREPROOFING JOB LIST TEXAS- ------------------------ Abilene: Abilene Civic Center Boone & Pope Taylor County Coliseum BOONE & Pope Arlinqton: Southwestern Bell Telephone Preston Geren Arlington Bank & Trust Co. Preston Geren Athens : Henderson County Hospital Harper & Kemp Austin: City National Bank Page, Southerland & Page Texas State Bank Merle Simpson & Assoc. University of Texas-LBJ Library Complex Skidmore,Owing & Merrill--Brooks, Barr, Graeber & White /East Campus Library & Research Buildings Skidmore.Owing & Merri11--Brooks, Barr, Graeber & White State Finance Office Building Golemon & Rolfe Veterans Administration Region Office David Barrow I.R.S. Regional Office Building Addn. Barrow & Stahl Highland Mall (Austin Mall Project) Katzmann & Assoc. Office Building No.1-Chevy Chase Center Neuhaus & Taylor State Farm Insurance Ellerbe Associates Joske's of Texas Harrell & Hamilton Carthage: Panola General Hospital Roscoe De Witt Master Li 2-1-71 Corpus Christi Corpus Christi State National Bank litio Kipp & Winston Spohn Hospital Martin & Solka Petroleum Tower Addition Berretta & Greenslade / Xtoo 600 Upper Broadway Building IL000 Jenkins & Hoff Dallas County: Republic National Bank Tower if- t t ^ Harrell & Hamilton;Thomas , Jameson & Merrill; Grayson Gill, Inc. Great American Reserve Insurance j,i 0*50 Harper & Kemp Southwestern Life Insurance Co. Geo. H. Dahl Southwestern Bell Telephone(A&E) p o, oo0 Thomas.Jameson & Merrill Neiman-Marcus Addition Roscoe DeWitt South Oak Cliff Library Casa View Library Wm. H. Hi dell Gardner-Denver Company Wm. H. Hi del 1 Lakeside Baptist Church HrKT-Sffli-th Harwood K. Smith Republic National Life Addition Geo. H. Dahl Mercantile Bank Addition V Broad & Nelson Great National Life Grayson Gill Expressway Tower Wei ton Becket Dallas North Plaza 13.0^ Paul Haberman Turtle Creek Plaza Building George L. Dahl 11 va4 <w- a ssf'C Dallas County (Continued) Twin Towers Buildings Neuhaus & Taylor 'Sears Regional Office Building Gordon Si beck Mountain View College Ensile Oglesby Bruton Park Office Buildings Neuhaus & Taylor Lakewood Bank Wood & Associates Eastfield College Harwood K. Smith K.R.L.D. Building Harwood K. Smith & Partners Sanger-Harris Department Store Thomas E. Stanley 511 North Akard Building Thomas, Jameson & Merrill Fidelity Union Tower Building Wyatt C. Hedrick Dallas Federal Savings & Loan George L. Dahl Southland Center-Sheraton Wei ton Beckett & Associates Mercantile Dallas Building Broad & Nelson Mercantile Continental Building Broad & Nelson Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Grayson Gill, Inc. Exchange Bank Building Lane-Gamble & Associates Braniff Airways Building Lane-Gamble & Associates Love Field Airport Terminal Jack Corgan & Broad & Nelson Blue Cross-Blue Shield Building Thomas, Jameson & Merrill Irving National Bank Building Grogan & Scoggins r age j Dallas County (Continued) Titches 183 Harrell & Hamilton Midway National Bank Smith & Warder \/ Sanger Harris(Six Flags Mall) Z'' H.K. Smith & Assoc. Six Flags Mall Harrell & Hami1 ton Garland Memorial Hospital Broad & Nelson J.J. Pierce High School Fred Buford Denton: Texas State University-Science Bldg. Page, Sutherland, & Page Fort Worth: Texas-Sheraton Hotel Preston Geren National Farm Life Insurance Bldg. A1 Komatsu All Saints Hospital George King Baker Building Lawrence White General Dynamics,Carswell A.F.B. Thomas Stanley All Church Home Library A1 Komatsu Federal Building Preston Geren St. Joseph Hospital Joseph R. Pelich Montgomery Ward Horace Maples Baptist Radio & Television Center Hueppelhauser & White Edison Dial Building Preston Geren Lone Star Gas Company Lawrence White Fort Worth (Continued) University Christian Church Preston Geren Fort Worth Star Telegraph Bldg. Lawrence White First National Bank 2 Preston A. Geren Neiman-Marcus Preston A. Geren Equitable Savings & Loan 01 in Boese Union Bank & Trust Preston A. Geren Tarrant County Savings & Loan Preston A. Geren Convention Center Joint Venture-Architects Rowan Building Joseph Pelich Meacham Field Administration Building Parker Croston Hondo: Hondo School Project Harvey P. Smith & Associates Longview: Good Shepherd Hospital Wilson .Morris,Crain & AndersonfHouslon). First National Bank Allen & Guinn Port Lavaca: First State Bank Christopher DiStefano San Angelo: San Angelo National Bank Harwood K. Smith Angelo State University-Dorm #1 Chakos & Zentner Angelo State University-Dorm #2 Chakos & Zentner * SaV) Angelo(Continued) Page 4 ' Angelo State University Student Center Chakos & Zentner San Antonio: / USAA Insurance Office Bldg. Addn / Ayres & Ayres Viewpoint Office Building H.B. Zachry Properties(Engr.Dept.) Baptist Memorial Hospital-N.E. Turner & Geyer Santa Rosa Children's Hospital Phelps & Simmons & Associates Palacio Del Rio Hotel H .B .Zachry-Cerna & Garza H.B.Zachry Office Building H.B .Zachry Properties-Engineered Hemisfair Various Architectual Firms Sherman: Austin College Science Building Peyton Cooper Tyler: Tyler Junior College Shirley Simons & Assoc. East Texas TB Hospital ' Harper & Kemp Uvalde: Uvalde High School Harvey P. Smith & Assoc. Vernon: Vernon Geriatrics Center Killebrew,Cupit & Rucker(Wichita Falls) Vernon Hospital Killebrew,Cupit & Rucker(Wichita Falls) Victoria: Victoria Bank & Trust Christopher DI Stefano Waco: Providence Hospital Bennett, Carnahan, Hearn & Thomas Masonic Building Bush & Dudley Wichita Falls: McClerkan Department Store Woodward & Cape(Dalias) Wichita Fa 11s(Continued) BBethania Hospital Harper & Martin City National Bank George L. Dahl OKLAHOMA-------------------------------- --------------------- Bartlesvi He: Phillips Buildings (2) Welton Beckett(Los Angeles) /A o ^ O Norman: Norman Library Sorey-Hi11-Binnicker & Associates Oklahoma City: Southwestern Bell Telephone Noftsger-Lawrence & Flesher 1 Voo Kermac Building Frankfurt-Short-Emery & McKinley 17.0*** Physicians & Surgeons Building Frankfurt-Short-Emery & McKinley Medical Tower Building Fritzler & Knoblock Liberty Bank Tower Stanley & Associates(Dallas) c First National Bank & Trust Hudgins-Thompson-Bal1 & Associates Fidelity National Bank Sorey-Hill & Binnicker Vascular Medical Clinic Fritzler & Knoblock Midwest City Hospital Bishop & Quinn Stillwater: Oklahoma State University Library Okla. State University Architects Tulsa: Farmers & Merchants Bank St. Louis Bank Architects 3p Pan American Building Black, West & Wozencraft Public Service Warehouse Murray,Jones & Murray Tulsa Airport [2 e> O Murray, Jones & Murray / DEPOSITION EXHIBIT 1 -X I /-)M /t 1 ovnans October 15, 1991 8140 walnut hill lane SUITE 3 1 0 LB 15 Dallas texas 75231 (214)373-4977 FAX (2 1 4) 363-7758 Mr. Bill Lo-ng District Clerk Dallas .County Courthouse 600 Commerce Street Dallas, Texas 75202 Re: No. 91-01760-H H. Wally Shipley and Faye Shipley, et al. vs. Armstrong World Industries Inc., et al. Dear Mr. Long: Enclosed for filing, please find a copy of the court reporter's certificate for the deposition of STEPHEN 0. SHEERAN taken in connection with the captioned matter. Please file same with the proper court pursuant to Rule 206 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, signature of the witness having been waived by agreement of the parties. By copy of this letter, I am forwarding the sealed original deposition to the attorney or party who asked the first question appearing in the transcript and notifying all parties of said filing. Thank you for your kind attention to this matter. Sincerely, Denise M. Mallia, CSR DMM/yt Enc. Legal Communications cc: Mr. Roger G. Worthington <Ms. Sandra F. Clark Mr. T. Griffin Vincent Mr. Thomas Evans Mr. Thomas-F. Dougall Ms. Donna Breedlove STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 172 1 CERTIFICATION PURSUANT TO RULES 205 AND 206 2 NO. 91-1760-H 3 H. WALLY SHIPLEY AND FAYE * IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF SHIPLEY; WELDON COOK AND * 4 BILLYE COOK; VIRGEL LEON * ZIMMERMAN AND RUTH * 5 ZIMMERMAN; HERBERT * WILLIAMS AND INEZ WILLIAMS;* 6 ARTHUR JAMES DAVIS; and * DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS J.R. GENTLE 7 * * VS . 8 * * ARMSTRONG WORLD INDUSTRIES,* 9 INC., ET AL. * 160TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT 10 11 12 CERTIFICATE TO ORAL DEPOSITION 13 OF 14 STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 15 16 17 I, Denise M. Mallia, Certified Shorthand 18 Reporter in and for the State of Texas and the 19 deposition officer for the deposition of the 20 above-named witness, do hereby certify to the 21 following: 22 1) That the witness was duly sworn by me; 23 2) That the transcript is a true record of 24 the testimony given by the witness on October 4, 25 19 91; PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN it: 1 3) That the charge for preparation of the 2 completed deposition transcript and any copies of 3 exhibits is and is to be paid by 4 the Plaintiffs 5 4) That the signature of the witness was 6 waived by agreement of the parties and the witness; 7 5) That the original deposition was 8 transmitted to Mr. Worthington, the person who 9 asked the first question appearing in the deposition 10 transcript for safekeeping or use at trial. 11 6) That pursuant to information obtained 12 at the time said testimony was taken, the following 13 includes all parties of record; 14 15 MR. ROGER G. WORTHINGTON Silber, Pearlman & Worthington 16 1000 Highland Park Place 4514 Cole Avenue, LB 34 17 Dallas, Texas 75205 18 FOR THE PLAINTIFFS 19 MS. SANDRA F. CLARK 20 Mehaffy& Weber 2615 Calder Avenue 21 P.O. Box 16 Beaumont, Texas 77704 22 23 FOR THE DEFENDANT, W.R. GRACE & COMPANY 24 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 1 MS. ELIZABETH M. THOMPSON Butler & Binion 2 1500 First Interstate Bank Plaza Houston, Texas 77002 3 FOR THE DEFENDANT, 4 OWENS-CORNING FIBERGLAS CORPORATION 5 6 MR. GARY D. ELLISTON DeHay & Blanchard 7 Plaza of the Americas 600 North Pearl Street 8 2500 South Tower, LB 201 Dallas, Texas 75201-2880 9 FOR THE DEFENDANTS, 10 GAF CORPORATION, A.P. GREEN INDUSTRIES, INC., 11 NATIONAL GYPSUM COMPANY, U.S. GYPSUM COMPANY and 12 ARMSTRONG WORLD INDUSTRIES, INC. 13 MR. THOMAS F. DOUGALL 14 Bowers Orr & Robertson 1401 Main Street, Suite 1100 15 P.O. Box 7307 Columbia, South Carolina 29202 16 FOR THE DEFENDANT, 17 PROKO INDUSTRIES, INC. 18 19 7) That a copy of this certificate was 20 served on all parties shown herein pursuant to Rule 21 21a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. 22 GIVEN UNDER MY HAND AND SEAL OF OFFICE on 23 this the 11th day of October, 1991. 24 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS STEPHEN J. SHEERAN 1 Denise M. Mallia, CSR #3590 2 Certified Shorthand Reporter In and for the State of Texas, 3 8140 Walnut Hill Lane Suite 310 LB 15 4 Dallas, Texas 75231 5 My commission expires: 12-31-92 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 PRITCHETT & ROMANS 373-4977 DALLAS, TEXAS