Document NEoeBVGe7rrp7a5ve1zQ9DbQ

debor.txt SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES KLAUS BRAUCH AND SUSAN BRAUCH ) -vs- ) ) ) BONDEX INTERNATIONAL, INC., ) ET_J\I) No. BC 258 492 VIDEOTAPED DEPOSITION v -of- EDWARD W. DEBOR As recorded on Tuesday, March 26, 2002, at 11:26 a.m., at the offices of Proximity, South Burlington, Vermont. APPEARANCES: ON BEHALF OF THE PLAINTIFFS: HOLLY HUART, ESQUIRE MICHAEL ARMITAGE, ESQUIRE WATERS & KRAUS, LLP 3219 McKinney Avenue Suite 3000 Dallas, Texas 75204 (by telephone) ON BEHALF OF UNION CARBIDE CORPORATION: JONATHAN GLASSER, ESQUIRE KELLEY, DRYE & WARREN 101 Park Avenue New York, New York 10178 (212) 808-7583 FARAH NICOL, ESQUIRE (by videoconference) MCKENNA & CUNEO, LLP 444 south Flower Street, Eighth Floor Los Angeles, California 90071-2901 (213) 688-1000 **** APPEARANCES CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE **** court Reporters Associates debor.txt 1 CONTINUED APPEARANCES: 2 ON BEHALF OF THE FLINTKOTE COMPANY: J. LAWRENCE JUDY, esquire (by telephone) 3 FREEBURG, JUDY & NETTELS 600 South Lake Avenue, Suite 500 4 Pasadena, California 91106-3904 (626) 585-4150 5 ON BEHALF OF GEORGIA PACIFIC: 6 GREG bevel, ESQUIRE (by telephone) BAILEY, CROWE, KUGLER 7 901 Main Street, Suite 4600 Dallas, Texas 75260 8 (214) 231-0540 9 ON BEHALF OF BONDEX: LISA KING, ESQUIRE (by videoconference) 10 WALSWORTH, FRANKLIN, BEVINS & MCCALL 1 City Boulevard west, Fifth Floor 11 Orange, California 92868-3677 (714) 634-2522 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Court Reporters Associates 1 INDEX 2 PAGE Page 2 debor.txt 3 Examination By Holly Huart, Esquire 7 4 Question Requested To Be Marked Page 14 Line 18 5 6 EXHIBITS 7 No. Description 8 A notice of deposition B amendednotice of deposition 9 C letter dated 3-22-02 D letter dated March 8 and objections 10 E three letters re: Pecukonis, Cipov and Gravitt cases 11 12 REQUESTS TO PRODUCE Page item 13 16 prior testimony in Frye case 33 records of retention policies of union 14 Carbide 54 log of privileged documents maintained by 15 Union Carbide in any waters & Kraus case against Union Carbide 16 89 search for litigation documents re: Roderman case 17 113 documents on which amended interrogatory answers were based 18 116 call reports, invoices, dust counts and sales reports re: sales to Kelly-Moore 19 prior to and including 1968 129 comparison of 5179 with asbestos repository 20 146 comparison of 5393 with asbestos repository 160 comparison of 5340 with asbestos repository 21 167 complete copy of 5327 171 customer application lists 22 173 complete unredacted copy of 5424 183 comparison of 5266 with asbestos repository 23 24 25 Court Reporters Associates 1 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: we're on the record at 2 approximately 11:21 a.m. This is the videotaped 3 deposition of Edward w. DeBor taken by the Plaintiff 4 in the matter of Klaus Brauch and Susan Brauch, Page 3 4 debor.txt 5 Plaintiffs, versus Bondex International, Inc., et 6 al., Defendants. The case is in the Superior court 7 of the State of California for the County of Los 8 Angeles, Case No. BC 258492. The deposition is being 9 held at the offices of Proximity in South Burlington, 10 Vermont, on March 26th, 2002, at the time indicated 11 on the video screen. 12 The court reporter is Tammy Martel 1 representing 13 the firm of Court Reporters Associates, Burlington, 14 Vermont. My name is william Perkins and I am the 15 videographer associated with A Plus video Tech 16 Services, Middlebury, Vermont. 17 Counsel will now introduce themselves. 18 MS. HUART: My name is Holly Huart, I 19 represent the Brauchs, and I am here on behalf of 20 waters and Kraus, and for the record I need to state 21 that while this deposition is going forward certainly 22 with respect to the Brauch case counsel for 23 Plaintiffs has likewise cross-noticed this deposition 24 for purposes of cases in Texas. They are the Cipov 25 c-l-P-o-v case, the Pecukonis case p-e-C-u-k-o-n-i-s, Court Reporters Associates 1 the Gravitt G-R-A-V-I-T-T case, and the Cales 2 C-a-l-e-S case, it is my understanding that a motion 3 to quash was filed by certain counsel for union 4 Carbide. I cannot make any representations about the 5 effect of that motion, I have not seen the motion, 6 and it is my understanding that there may be some Page 4 5 debor.txt 7 question about which depositions that specific motion 8 to quash sought to quash for today. 9 MR. JUDY: This is J. Lawrence Judy for the 10 Flintkote Company. I have no notice of any of those 11 proceedings in Texas and do not appear for the 12 Flintkote Company with respect to any of those 13 matters. I appear at this deposition for the 14 Flintkote Company solely with respect to the 15 California case filed for Klaus and Susan Brauch, and 16 I object to this proceeding with respect to any Texas 17 proceeding to which the Flintkote Company may be a 18 party and of which I have no notice. 19 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Do you wish to identify 20 yourself? 21 MR. GLASSER: oh, yes, Jonathan Glasser, 22 Kelley, Drye & warren, for union Carbide. 23 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Are there other counsel 24 in Los Angeles to be identified? 25 MS. NICOL: Yes, Farah Nicol also for Union Court Reporters Associates D 1 carbide, and just in further response to the Texas 2 supposed notices of deposition that I believe were 3 received just Friday of last week I am also under the 4 information that motions to quash were filed with 5 regards to those matters and therefore this 6 deposition of Mr. DeBor is proceeding only in the 7 Brauch case as is captioned, and specifically 8 pursuant to the letter agreement of March 22nd signed Page 5 6 debor.txt 9 between myself and Mike Armitage of waters and Kraus, 10 and only as to those -- scope of that agreement 11 outlined. 12 MS. KING: This is Lisa King, and I 13 represent Bondex, and I am appearing for Bondex only 14 in the Brauch case and join with the other counsel's 15 statements concerning the cross-notice of this 16 deposition in Texas cases. 17 MR. bevel: This is Greg Bevel on behalf of 18 Georgia Pacific, and I also join in the objections, 19 with respect to Plaintiff counsel can we stipulate at 20 this point that an objection with one Defendant will 21 be good for all for the remainder of the deposition. 22 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: The court reporter will 23 now swear in the witness. 24 EDWARD DEBOR, 25 having been duly sworn by the Notary, deposes and Court Reporters Associates 1 says as follows: 2 EXAMINATION BY HOLLY HUART, ESQUIRE: 3 Q. Good morning, Mr. DeBor. My name is Holly Huart. 4 I represent the Plaintiffs in this case and I am 5 going to be asking you some questions today 6 concerning your work and the work that you do for 7 Union Carbide in your capacity as a records 8 custodian, is that your understanding? 9 A. Yes, it is. 10 Q. Okay. Page 6 7 debor.txt A. Nice to meet you. 12 Q. It is good to meet you, too. Now, will you 13 please state your name and address for the record? 14 MS. NICOL: I am going to object to his 15 address. He can be reached through counsel since he 16 is a current employee of union carbide, but 17 certainly, Mr. DeBor, go ahead and give them your 18 full name. 19 A. Edward w. DeBor, d-e-b-o-r. 20 Q. And what is your business address, sir? 21 A. 579 LaPorte l-a-p-o-R-t-e Road, Morrisville, 22 Vermont. 23 Q. How far is Morrisville from here? 24 A. About 50 minutes. About 10 miles due north of 25 Stowe. Court Reporters Associates 1 Q. Is that the office where you work as the records 2 custodian for Union Carbide? 3 A. Yes. 4 Q. What is your date of birth, sir? 5 A. 7-12-1949. 6 Q. And please state for the record the corporate 7 name of the entity that employs you? 8 A. union Carbide Corporation. 9 Q. Are you employed by any other law firm or entity? 10 A. No. 11 Q. is Mr. Glasser here as your personal counsel? 12 A. NO. Page 7 8 debor.txt 13 Q. I take it then that you don't have personal 14 counsel here representing you today; is that correct? 15 A. That's correct. 16 MS. NICOL: I am going to object as 17 confusing. He is certainly here produced as a person 18 most knowledgeable on certain categories for union 19 Carbide as a Union Carbide employee, and counsel are 20 here representing those interests. 21 Q. Have you ever been deposed before? 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. And what -- what type of case was that in? 24 A. I have been deposed in an asbestos case -- 25 Q. Mm-hmm. Court Reporters Associates 1 A. -- by telephone, and I believe the court reporter 2 did the transcribing in that case; I have also been 3 deposed in a superfund case or two; and I believe a 4 benzene case. 5 Q. So I take it these three or four depositions, is 6 that correct, that you have given have been in -- on 7 behalf of unioncarbide, correct? 8 A. That's correct, yes. 9 Q. In the asbestos case that you were deposed in, 10 how long ago did that occur? 11 A. I am not sure of the exact time, six months, 12 eight months. 13 Q. I will assume from that that you are familiar 14 with the way depositions are conducted. That I as Page 8 9 debor.txt 15 the questioning party will be asking questions, 16 counsel for union Carbide will be stating their 17 objections, you will be answering unless they 18 instruct you not to answer. If you don't understand 19 my question you can tell me and I will try to ask it 20 in a way that you do understand it. if you answer my 21 question I will assume that you understood my 22 question the way that I asked it. And I guess at the 23 end you will be able to read and sign your deposition 24 and make corrections if for some reason things were 25 not recorded the way that you intended, but should Court Reporters Associates 1 you change or make some correction that changes your 10 2 answer substantively then I would have an opportunity 3 to take your deposition again concerning those 4 changes, do you understand that? 5 A. Yes, I do. 6 Q. Okay. Now, you are here with respect to the 7 notice of deposition of the person most knowledgeable 8 concerning certain subject matter areas and an 9 agreement that was entered into by and between 10 counsel, is that your understanding? 11 A. Yes. 12 Q. Okay, well, for the record I would like to 13 attach as exhibits to the deposition the documents 14 that reflect the deposition notices and the 15 agreements of counsel, and for the record I am going 16 to start with the notice of taking videotaped Page 9 debor.txt 17 deposition of person most knowledgeable of union 18 Carbide Corporation dated March the 13th as 19 Plaintiffs' Exhibit A; a -- an amended notice of 20 taking the videotaped deposition of person most 21 knowledgeable of union Carbide Corporation dated 22 March the 26th, which will be Plaintiffs' Exhibit B; 23 and the letter dated March 22nd, 2002, signed by both 24 Ms. Nicol -- did I pronounce your name correctly, 25 Farah? Court Reporters Associates 1 MS. NICOL: You have perfectly. 2 Q. ms. Nicol and Mr. Armitage, counsel for 3 Plaintiffs and counsel for Defense have signed a 4 letter agreement concerning the conditions under 5 which this deposition is going forward in the Brauch 6 case. That will be Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. C. And I 7 would also like to add to it the letter dated March 8 the 8th which includes objections to this 9 deposition -- I beg your pardon, March 8th letter 10 from counsel for Union Carbide which is the cover 11 letter to the objections that Union Carbide had to 12 the deposition going forward. That will be 13 Plaintiffs' Exhibit D. 14 MS. NICOL: And just for clarification are 15 you attaching the objections as well because if not 16 we would like to have those attached. 17 MS. HUART: Plaintiffs' Exhibit D. 18 MS. NICOL: Does the Exhibit D include the Page 10 11 debor.txt 19 letter and the objections that areattached or just 20 the letter? 21 MS. HUART: It is all stapled together as 22 one document, it is the way it came to me. 23 MS. NICOL: Okay, great. I just want to 24 make sure the objections areattached to the 25 transcript as well. Court Reporters Associates 12 1 (Exhibits A - D marked for identification.) 2 MS. NICOL: I don't want to interrupt what 3 you are doing, but if you don't mind I just want to 4 make a brief statement for the record, and if you 5 have attached all the documents you are going to 6 attach at this point it may be an appropriate time 7 for me to do that. 8 MS. HUART: Actually there is -- why don't 9 I give you an opportunity to do that in a moment 10 because I have got a follow-up piece of 11 correspondence that I -- I need to refer to as - 12 MS. NICOL: Certainly. 13 MS. HUART: -- Plaintiffs' Exhibit E. 14 (Deposition Exhibit E marked for identification.) 15 Q. Mr. DeBor, I have in front of me a series of 16 three letters which all reference the taking of your 17 deposition, and these letters are going to counsel 18 for union Carbide on March the 15th. one is under 19 the caption of the Pecukonis case, one of the Cipov 20 case, and the other of the Gravitt case. And these Page 11 debor.txt 21 three letters are letters -- I will go ahead and give 22 you an opportunity to look at those, are letters 23 going to counsel for union Carbide requesting that we 24 be given dates in March for your deposition. I would 25 like to give you an opportunity to look at those and Court Reporters Associates 1 you can tell me if you have seen those before. 13 2 MS. NICOL: I am going to object that this 3 is regarding Texas matters and Texas actions 4 specifically that are not the subject of this 5 deposition and are clearly not the subject of this 6 deposition and therefore this is an inappropriate 7 question to ask, beyond the scope of the deposition. 8 A. No, I have not seen these letters. 9 Q. Okay. Sir, has -- has anybody from union Carbide 10 or counsel for Union Carbide's office called you and 11 asked you if you were available for deposition to 12 testify in any Texas cases -- I am not done with my 13 question yet. To testify in any cases during the 14 month of March? 15 MS. NICOL: Same objection. And this is 16 probably going to be the last question you get to ask 17 on this topic since it is not covered by our 18 agreement for this deposition, and I know you are 19 well aware of that. 20 Q. Do you need me to -- do you want me to restate 21 the question since I was interrupted? 22 A. Specifically regarding March, no. I had heard Page 12 debor.txt 23 that I had been subpoenaed in the Texas cases and 24 that's the extent of it. 25 Q. When -- when did you hear that? Court Reporters Associates 14 1 MS. NICOL: Same objections, beyond the 2 scope of the deposition notice and outside of the 3 Brauch case that we are all here for. 4 A. Yesterday. 5 Q. Thank you. I take it then that that was the 6 first time that you had heard about a desire to want 7 to take your deposition in any Texas cases? 8 MS. NICOL: Same objection. 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. Thank you. One last question concerning the 11 Plaintiffs' attempts to try to get your deposition 12 scheduled for the Texas cases. Can I assume from 13 your prior answer that you haven't been showed any 14 other documents or notices of deposition with respect 15 to records custodians for Texas cases? Strike that. 16 MS. NICOL: Same -17 Q. Strike that, I am withdrawing the question. 18 Am I correct that you had not previously been 19 shown any notices to depose records custodians for 20 the purposes of any Texas cases? 21 MS. NICOL: Asked and answered, beyond the 22 scope of the deposition, and I think you have had 23 your opportunity to ask all the irrelevant questions 24 that you can about that. Page 13 debor.txt 25 Mr. DeBor, you don't need to answer any further Court Reporters Associates 1 with regards to these Texas actions that have nothing 2 to do with the deposition you are here for and are 3 prepared to give today. 4 MS. HUART: Are you instructing the witness 5 not to answer? 6 MS. NICOL: That's correct. 7 MS. HUART: Would you mark that question, 8 please. At the end of the deposition I would like to 9 make a request to get an indexed set of the marked 10 questions. 11 THE REPORTER: Okay. 12 MS. HUART: Thank you. 13 Q. In the asbestos case that you were deposed in by 14 telephone six or eight months ago was that a case 15 involving an allegation of exposure to asbestos 16 from -- strike that. 17 was that an allegation from exposure to asbestos 18 supplied by the Union carbide Company? 19 MR. GLASSER: objection as to form. 20 A. No. 21 Q. what -- what type of asbestos case were you 22 deposed in six or eight months ago? 23 A. it was a premise case involving a former employee 24 of a facility that union carbide no longer owns. 25 Q. And which facility was that? 15 Page 14 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 1 A. I believe it was Elk Grove, California. 16 2 Q. Do you recall who the attorney was that took your 3 deposition? 4 A. No, I do not. 5 Q. Do you recall the name of the plaintiff? 6 A. I believe it was the Frye case. 7 Q. And that would be F-R-Y or f-r-y-e? 8 A. I am not sure of the spelling. 9 Q. Do you have a copy of that deposition? 10 A. I am not sure if I have one back at the office. 11 I know that I did go through the typed testimony, and 12 I am not sure whether I kept it or not to be honest 13 with you. 14 MS. HUART: I would like to make a request 15 on the record for the production of Mr. DeBor's prior 16 testimony in the Frye case. 17 MS. NICOL: And I just want to preserve an 18 objection that we again think that that's a topic not 19 covered by the scope of our agreement with Plaintiffs 20 with regards to this deposition. 21 Q. How long did that deposition last? 22 A. Oh, it always seems longer and -- an hour or two. 23 Q. In our world that's a pretty short deposition. 24 Okay. Probably seemed like an eternity I am sure. 25 Were you asked to provide -- strike that. Court Reporters Associates Page 15 debor.txt 1 Did your testimony concern documents and records 2 that pertained to the Elk Grove facility? 3 MS. NICOL: I am going to also object 4 beyond the scope of the deposition. Certainly I have 5 allowed you some leeway to ask about his prior 6 depositions because that is relevant to whether he is 7 comfortable with the deposition process and 8 understands the ground rules for a deposition. The 9 detail you are getting into again are matters and 10 subjects not covered by our agreement for this 11 deposition. 12 Q. Mr. DeBor, were you testifying in your capacity 13 as the records custodian for Union Carbide? 14 A. Yes, I was. 15 Q. And were you testifying concerning the existence, 16 extent and location of Union Carbide records that 17 were pertinent to that action? 18 ms. NICOL: Same objections plus compound, 19 calls for speculation, lacks foundation. 20 A. Could you repeat the question? 21 MS. HUART: Could you read the question 22 back. 23 (The reporter read back the requested matter.) 24 A. As a records custodian the records issue was what 25 I was testifying to. 17 Court Reporters Associates 1 Q. Okay. Page 16 18 debor.txt 2 A. Yes. 3 Q. were you asked to authenticate any documents in 4 that deposition? 5 ms. nicol: Calls for a legal conclusion. 6 A. I don't believe that I was. I don't recall that 7 I was. 8 Q. were you asked to give testimony concerning the 9 creation of union carbide documents pertinent to that 10 action? 11 A. If you are asking if the documents were 12 maintained in the normal course of business for union 13 Carbide, yes, I was. 14 Q. That would be the - 15 ms. nicol: Same objection to that 16 question. 17 Q. were you shown Union Carbide documents and then 18 asked if they were retained in the normal course of 19 business of union Carbide? 20 MS. NICOL: Same objections. 21 A. Again, I don't recall specifically. This was a 22 telephone deposition and I don't recall the context 23 of the document issue. 24 Q. Mm-hmm. Have you ever provided a declaration or 25 an affidavit concerning authenticity of Union Carbide Court Reporters Associates 1 documents? 2 MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope of this 3 deposition and our agreement and irrelevant to the Page 17 19 debor.txt 4 matters that are the subject upon which he is going 5 to speak about today as a person most knowledgeable 6 on certain categories only. 7 A. Yes. 8 Q. Approximately how many occasions have you done 9 that? 10 A. A number of occasions, I have no idea. I have 11 worked for union carbide Corporation in the corporate 12 records center for 26 years, and in the course of the 13 normal activities in that job it happens 14 occasionally. 15 Q. would you be able to provide some estimate of the 16 number of times or - 17 MS. NICOL: Same objections. I am going to 18 permit just a slight more amount of leeway. There is 19 no basis to go into this questioning based on the 20 scope, which you are very well aware of, at this 21 deposition per our agreement dated March 22nd and 22 signed by Mike Armitage of your office. 23 A. I would hesitate to give a number, it is -- it 24 is a number. I have done this a -- a few times in 25 the course of business. Court Reporters Associates 1 Q- And that 'would be say less than six? 2 A. Oh - 3 MS. NICOL: Same objection. 4 A. More than that certainly. 5 Q- Less than a dozen? Page 18 20 debor.txt 6 MS. NICOL: Calls for speculation. He has 7 already told you he can't be more precise, same 8 objection. 9 MS. HUART: I am going to object to the 10 speaking objections being placed on the record based 11 on my understanding of the California procedural 12 rules. 13 Q. Mr. DeBor, have you given trial testimony before? 14 A. Yes. 15 Q. Has that been in connection with any case 16 involving allegations of asbestos exposure? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. when did you testify at trial? 19 A. I believe it was December of last year. 20 Q. were you called by union Carbide as a witness? 21 A. I am not sure what you mean in the distinction. 22 I was -23 Q. okay. I will ask it a different way. were you 24 testifying on behalf of union carbide? 25 MS. NICOL: Objection vague. Court Reporters Associates 1 A. I was representing Union Carbide in an asbestos 2 case in Texas. 3 Q. And where in Texas was this trial? 4 A.Brazoria County. 5 Q. Do you recall the name of the Plaintiff involved 6 in that case? 7 A. No, I do not. Page 19 21 debor.txt 8 Q. Do you recall the name of the Plaintiff's 9 attorney that was involved in that case? 10 A. Yes, Mark Lanier. 11 Q. He is hard to forget, isn't he. You don't have 12 to -- that wasn't a question calling for a response, 13 was -- what were the allegations -- strike that. 14 Was that a case involving exposure to asbestos 15 on a facility owned by union carbide? 16 A. NO. 17 Q. what was the issue in that case concerning -- 18 strike that. 19 were you -- strike that. 20 was Union carbide involved in this -- involved 21 in that case as a supplier of calidria fiber to 22 another entity? 23 MS. NICOL: Calls for speculation, lacks 24 foundation. 25 A. Again, I am not sure exactly what you are asking. Court Reporters Associates 1 Q. I will ask it another way. what kind of 22 2 testimony were you giving in that case concerning 3 Union carbide's records, do you recall that? What 4 the -- what the general nature of your testimony was? 5 A. Again, Mr. Lanier called me early, and the issues 6 revolved around documents on their exhibit list. 7 Q. were you asked to provide testimony concerning 8 your knowledge of whether the documents were records 9 kept in the ordinary course of business? Page 20 debor.txt 10 A. Yes, I believe there was some questions to that 11 effect. 12 Q. Do you recall whether there were any documents 13 that you were asked to testify about where your 14 response was -- was that to your knowledge those were 15 not documents kept in the ordinary course of 16 business? 17 MS. NICOL: Calls for speculation, lacks 18 foundation, improper hypothetical. 19 A. Could you repeat the question. 20 MS. NICOL: And again beyond the scope of 21 this deposition. 22 MS. HUART: I think this witness's testimony 23 concerning the authentication of documents falls 24 clearly under category three. My last question was 25 taken from -- taken verbatim out of the text of Court Reporters Associates 1 category three. And I don't want to take up time on 23 2 the record with colloquy, but we have agreed that 3 that is an appropriate area to go into, and if this 4 witness has given prior testimony concerning 5 knowledge of whether documents or any of them are 6 kept in the ordinary course of business I am 7 certainly entitled to go into that. 8 Q. sir, did you have a copy - 9 MS. NICOL: Category three of the 10 deposition notice regards the creation, storage, 11 retention and authenticity of the documents listed on Page 21 debor.txt 12 Plaintiffs' Union Carbide exhibit list attached as 13 Exhibit B. It does not ask about him as an 14 authenticator of any document in any litigation but 15 in fact is limited to the documents listed on Exhibit 16 B that Plaintiffs have produced in connection with 17 this deposition notice, so I disagree with you. 18 MS. HUART: well, Ms. Nicol, I would be 19 shocked if there wasn't an overlap between the 20 documents that were utilized in Mark Lanier's case 21 and the documents that are listed on Exhibit B, and I 22 am certain that there is some overlap between those 23 documents and Exhibit B, but once we find out what 24 that is we can certainly go into it more, and if you 25 are agreeing at this point to put him up for Court Reporters Associates D 1 deposition one more time to testify about that I 24 2 am -- we'll --we'll do it again, that's fine. I am 3 trying to save time. 4 MS. NICOL: And you and I can't -- you and 5 I can't try to speculate and then have Mr. DeBor 6 speculate about what each and every document he was 7 asked about in his dep and if that's covered on 8 exhibit list. We don't intend to put him up for 9 deposition again. This is your opportunity to ask 10 him the items that are covered by the scope of the 11 deposition that we have agreed to do. Category three 12 is in fact agreed to that he will be produced as a 13 person most knowledgeable, and again I have read Page 22 debor.txt category three and as it is stated in Plaintiffs own notice it is limited to Exhibit B. Q. Mr. DeBor, how long were you on the witness stand in Mr. Lanier's case testifying concerning records kept in the ordinary course of business at Union Carbide? MS. NICOL: same objections. A. I was on the stand for about an hour and a half. Q. were you subpoenaed to testify by Mr. Lanier or were you asked to testify by Union Carbide? MS. NICOL: same objection. A. I am not sure; but I believe I was not court Reporters Associates subpoenaed, I was asked. Q. Do you have any knowledge concerning the outcome of the case in which you testified concerning your knowledge of whether the documents were kept in the ordinary course of business? MR. GLASSER: objection. MS. NICOL: Beyond the -- Q. Did you have any discussions with counsel for union carbide prior to this deposition? A. Yes. Q. And when were you first contacted concerning testifying in the -- strike that. when were you first contacted concerning the Brauch case? MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope of the Page 23 debor.txt 16 deposition categories we have agreed to. You know, 17 this might be an appropriate time for me to make that 18 introductory statement unless you feel you are still 19 doing background information that -- we keep on 20 getting into areas that are not covered by our 21 agreement, and I am just wondering if maybe it will 22 behoove us for me to make that introductory statement 23 on the record at this time. 24 MS. HUART: well, I think that I am 25 certainly entitled to -- to ask questions concerning Court Reporters Associates D 1 the events leading up to the -- to the deposition 2 and -- and I -- what I would like to know is, Mr. 3 DeBor, when -- do you recall when the first time was 4 that you were contacted concerning the case? 5 MS. NICOL: Same objection, it is beyond 6 the scope of the deposition. The deposition notice 7 Plaintiffs sought to have someone testify on events 8 that occurred more than 30 years ago. As we have 9 made very clear throughout the entire time that we 10 have attempted to meet and confer with Plaintiff with 11 regards to the scope of this deposition Mr. DeBor 12 himself has no substantive personal knowledge with 13 regards to the categories upon which Plaintiffs have 14 sought him to testify upon; however, in his records 15 capacity or his records custodian capacity he has 16 attempted to make himself knowledgeable simply by 17 review of the documents and only by review of the Page 24 debor.txt 18 documents and can only state basically what the 19 documents say. 20 with that clear understanding with Plaintiff and 21 as specifically stated in our March 22nd letter that 22 is a signed agreement on the scope of this deposition 23 we have agreed to produce Mr. DeBor specifically as a 24 person most knowledgeable on only categories three 25 and category six, nine -- six, seven, eight, nine and Court Reporters Associates 1 10 of the deposition notice only. And, again, it was 2 agreed by counsel before the deposition began here 3 that Plaintiffs' amended notice of this deposition in 4 no way altered the categories from the original 5 deposition notice and so that this letter agreement 6 applies with full force and effect to the categories 7 upon which we have stated he will testify. 8 we have further specifically agreed that all 9 questioning will be limited to the relevant time 10 period in this case, and in particular prior to and 11 including September 1968 only. 12 We have further agreed in allowing good faith 13 discovery to Plaintiffs, despite the fact that it has 14 not been alleged in Plaintiffs' case report against 15 Union Carbide, that we will allow Mr. DeBor to speak 16 on the categories three and six through 10 as 17 concerns United States Gypsum Company, National 18 Gypsum Company, Georgia Pacific, Kelly-Moore and 19 Flintkote to the extent he has reviewed any of these Page 25 27 debor.txt 20 documents relevant to those manufacturers. 21 And finally we have agreed to allow a deposition 22 to go forward of Mr. DeBor on categories 12, 15, 16 23 and 17 with the very clear understanding that he is 24 not being produced as the person most knowledgeable 25 on that category. There is not an employee person Court Reporters Associates 1 most knowledgeable on those categories, but we are 2 again in the spirit of cooperation and discovery 3 allowing him to testify to whatever extent he may 4 have personal knowledge on those categories. 5 MS. HUART: So it is -- it is your position 6 that I am not even entitled to ask him questions 7 concerning his employment history at union Carbide 8 since that is not - 9 MS. NICOL: Right. 10 MS. HUART: Since that is not in the 11 deposition notice your -- your position is that I am 12 not permitted to ask him any questions concerning 13 what he has done at union Carbide; is that correct? 14 MS. NICOL: Ms. Huart, you haven't been 15 prevented from asking him any background information 16 which we all understand and agree appropriate 17 background information about the witness can be 18 allowed. I have not stopped you from asking those 19 questions, so I suggest that you go ahead and proceed 20 with the deposition. lust simply reminding you of 21 the scope because many questions have been asked thus Page 26 28 debor.txt 22 far that are beyond the scope even though I have been 23 giving liberty in allowing those questions to go 24 forward. 25 MS. HUART: Well, I would disagree. I Court Reporters Associates 1 think this witness's history in providing testimony 29 2 both by deposition and at trial concerning, and I 3 quote from category three, creation meaning knowledge 4 of whether documents or any of them are a record kept 5 in the ordinary course of business and whether it was 6 the regular course of business of union carbide for 7 an employee or a representative of union Carbide 8 etcetera, etcetera, to make that record. I think 9 that my questions have -- have been appropriate, and 10 I would simply disagree with you that we have gone 11 outside that scope; but I am going to go ahead and 12 ask him, you know, the questions that I feel are 13 necessary to place his testimony into context, and 14 that will include his background and the work that he 15 has done on other cases. 16 MS. NICOL: And as I stated you -- you have 17 been allowed to ask those questions. I have a right 18 and the client has a right to be able to make 19 objections because clearly many of your questions 20 have gone beyond that scope. You and I don't need to 21 debate that issue. You have been asking the 22 questions and you have been getting answers to them. 23 MS. HUART: Except for the ones that you Page 27 debor.txt 24 have instructed him not to answer. 25 MS. NICOL: That would be one and it had Court Reporters Associates 1 nothing to do with Texas testimony. 30 2 Q. According to the March 22nd letter of counsel, 3 Mr. DeBor, you have been described as an individual 4 employed with union Carbide in a records custodian 5 capacity for approximately 26 years; is that correct? 6 A. Yes, ma'am. 7 Q. okay, when did you start working forunion 8 Carbide? 9 A. Oh, it was June 1976. 10 Q. And what was your first position with union 11 Carbide in June of '76? 12 A. It was information analyst. 13 Q. And what is the -- what were your duties and 14 responsibilities as an information analyst? 15 A. I have always worked at the corporate records 16 center in Morrisville, Vermont, starting from 1976 to 17 the present. Typical of that duties there is really 18 a two prong focus. One is to maintain and organize 19 using appropriate corporate policies all the records 20 that are archived at the corporate records center, 21 the second responsibility is to respond to requests 22 and need for information that are made by various 23 components of the corporation regarding those 24 records. 25 Q. So you -- you spent yourentire Union Carbide Page 28 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 1 career in this one facility; is that correct? 31 2 A. That's correct. 3 Q. Okay. How large a facility is the Morrisville 4 facility? 5 A. we currently have capacity to store 78,000 6 cartons of records. Right now I believe we have 7 73,000 cartons of records. And in the records 8 management world, if you will, you tend to equate 9 that to cubic feet so many, many documents. 10 Q. Does the records center in Morrisville also house 11 computerized records? 12 A. if you are talking about data, yes, we do have a 13 component whereby we store computer tapes, CDs and 14 other format as it develops or as it has been in the 15 past. 16 Q. Microfiche? 17 A. Again, microfiche, microfilm is a different 18 modality from hard copy or a paper format, but 19 essentially that is not a computerized form but -- 20 Q. So in the Morrisville facility where you work 21 there is -- there are both hard copies of documents, 22 paper records, as well as computerized types of data, 23 documents stored on CD ROM and other formats; is that 24 correct? 25 A. That's correct, yes. Page 29 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 1 Q. Okay. Any other formats besides microfiche, 32 2 microfilm, CD ROM? 3 A. In specifically as far as modality and data we 4 have tape which is both reel and cassette, and I 5 believe that's the extent of it, yes. 6 Q. How many individuals work with you at this 7 records facility in Morrisville, Vermont? 8 MS. NICOL: vague. 9 Q. How many individuals are employed at this records 10 center in Morrisville? 11 A. Six. We have a staff of three full-time and 12 three half-time employees. Q. And what is your title? A. Assistant manager corporate records center for 15 Union Carbide. 16 Q. So when you started with Union Carbide in Dune of 17 1976 union Carbide was already -- had already begun 18 involvement in asbestos-related litigation; is that 19 correct? 20 MR. glasser: objection, it is beyond the 21 scope. 22 A. I can't answer that specifically. 23 Q. When you started in 1976 were you aware of Union 24 Carbide being involved in asbestos cases? 25 MR. GLASSER: Same objection. Court Reporters Associates Page 30 debor.txt 1 A. No, I was not. 2 Q. Do you archive records that are related to 3 matters other than asbestos? 4 A. Absolutely. Again, thecorporate facility at 5 Union Carbide is the corporaterecords center for 6 Union Carbide, it houses all types mixed and 7 multiple, if you will, of business records created in 8 the normal course of business; and, again, we 9 generally maintain those based on a corporate 10 retention schedule. 11 Q. So Union Carbide has a policy for document 12 retention? 13 A. Yes. Actually our policy goes back far beyond my 14 time. It is my understanding that our records 15 retention policies and procedures were one of the 16 first in the chemical industry. 17 MS. HUART: I would like to make a request 18 on the record for production of those. 19 Q. with respect to the - 20 MS. NICOL: I just want to make a statement 21 in response to that again is beyond the scope ofthe 22 deposition. 23 Q. Who is in the --in the hierarchy at the records 24 center, who do you report to? 25 A. Phillip Fournier, that'sF-O-U-R-N-I-E-R. He is 33 Court Reporters Associates 1 the manager of the records center. Page 31 34 debor.txt 2 Q. Are there any other assistant managers? 3 A. NO. 4 Q. That's not a title you share? 5 A. No. 6 Q. Now, to whom does Mr. Fournier report? Who is 7 above him or does he report to corporate? 8 MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope. 9 Q. Does he report to the corporate - 10 MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope. 11 Q. I apologize, did you get your objection finished? 12 MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope of the 13 deposition notice. 14 Q. To whom does your boss, Mr. Fournier, report? 15 MS. NICOL: Same objection. 16 A. Greg Growchoski, and I will make an attempt at 17 the spelling, it is g-r-o-w-c-h-o-s-k-i. 18 Q. And what's -- I won't even attempt a 19 pronunciation. What is his title? 20 A. I believe - 21 MS. NICOL: Same objection. 22 A. I believe as far as his involvement with records 23 is corporate records manager, I believe, but I am not 24 sure. 25 Q. Now, you mentioned that this corporate records Court Reporters Associates 35 1 center in Morrisville is the corporate records center 2 for the company; is that correct? 3 A. Yes, that's correct. Page 32 debor.txt 4 Q. There are, however, other "locations where union 5 Carbide records are stored and maintained, correct? 6 A. That's correct. 7 Q. Now, there are -- and I understand there are 8 various offices of the Kelley, Drye & Warren firm 9 that also maintain and store Union carbide records; 10 is that correct? 11 MS. NICOL: Calls for speculation, lacks 12 foundation. 13 A. Are you referring to the asbestos repository? 14 Q. Yes. 15 A. Yes, we do maintain an asbestos repository at the 16 offices of Kelley, Drye & warren. 17 Q. Now, is this asbestos repository in -- is this 18 the one in New York, the one in New Jersey or the one 19 in Connecticut or all three? 20 A. As far as I am aware New York. 21 Q. This is Park Avenue? 22 A. Yes, 101 Park Avenue. 23 Q. what is your relationship or oversight 24 responsibility with respect to the documents that are 25 maintained at Park Avenue? Court Reporters Associates 1 A. None. 2 Q. who is in charge of the records at Park Avenue? 3 A. The - 4 MS. NICOL: Calls for speculation. 5 A. The custodian of those records are Virginia -- Page 33 36 debor.txt Virginia Ruszczyk. You could help me with the 7 spelling. 8 MR. GLASSER: R-U-S-Z-C-Z-Y-K. 9 Q. Is that -- are you -- do you have personal 10 knowledge concerning the fact that Miss -- how do you 11 pronounce it? 12 A. Ruszczyk. 13 Q. Ruszczyk. Do you have personal knowledge that 14 Miss Ruszczyk is the records custodian at the Park 15 Avenue facility? 16 A. Again, in this particular case we have included 17 that in our interrogatory responses, and I have 18 certainly seen that there, yes. 19 Q. Do you know -- strike that. 20 Are the records stored at Park Avenue copies of records that you have in Morrisville or is that a completely separate set of documents? 23 A. I am not sure. 24 Q. Okay. You know what, I was going to withdraw 25 that question anyway. Let me start over. Court Reporters Associates 1 Do you know the difference just generally by 2 description of what is maintained in Morrisville 3 versus what is maintained in the Park Avenue asbestos 4 repository? Am I calling that the right thing? what 5 do you call the Park Avenue location, what's - 6 A. Yes, the asbestos repository of Kelley, Drye. 7 Q. That's what you call it, okay. Well, I am going Page 34 37 debor.txt 8 to call it the same thing that you call it so we're 9 on the same page here. 10 Can you -- can you tell me or just describe for 11 me what the relationship is between the asbestos 12 repository at Kelley, Drye and the records that you 13 are in charge of in Morrisville? 14 A. Certainly. Again, as I indicated, the corporate 15 records center maintains the business documents, all 16 types of documents sent to us from various 17 departments and divisions within Union Carbide over 18 the years. Starting in I believe 1980 outside 19 counsel started to collect asbestos-related documents 20 and in the course of the last 20 years the 21 repository -- asbestos repository at Kelley, Drye has 22 grown, and probably will continue to grow to some 23 degree as documents are discovered in the normal 24 course of discovery and business. There has been a 25 number of times that Kelley, Drye people as well as Court Reporters Associates 1 Union Carbide people have traveled to Vermont as well 38 2 as all other locations within union carbide to 3 collect asbestos documents for inclusion into the 4 repository. 5 Q. And who makes the -- strike that. 6 How do they know that those -- strike that. 7 Do they come to Vermont to get documents because 8 you have told them that something has come to your 9 attention and this is asbestos related and you -- Page 35 debor.txt 10 they need to know about it, is that how that happens? 11 MS. NICOL: Objection, vague and ambiguous, 12 overbroad and as to time and scope. 13 A. Say again, please. 14 Q. How does it happen thatthe -- how do the people 15 from Kelley, Drye know tocome to Morrisville to in 16 your words collect asbestos-related documents? 17 A. Okay, again - 18 MS. NICOL: Same objection. 19 A. -- there has been major reviews and major 20 initiatives to collect these documents, and obviously 21 we have maintained records that are asbestos related 22 from various departments and divisions within union 23 carbide and their investigations have been extensive. 24 Q. when you say we have maintained records that are 25 asbestos related are you talking specifically about Court Reporters Associates D 1 your group at Morrisville or do you mean we meaning 2 the royal we union carbide? 3 A. No, I meant the corporate records center. 4 Q. Okay. 5 A. Again if you were talking about how do they come 6 to Vermont within the broad scope of the 73,000 boxes 7 there are obviously or have been documents related to 8 asbestos, and we have done a complete and thorough 9 investigation to a level that -- actually in the last 10 26 years compared to any litigation this is obviously 11 a huge issue, it is unprecedented I know for a fact Page 36 debor.txt 12 because as part of my duties in the records 13 management group that I have traveled to other 14 locations, identified areas where our counsel should 15 go review and search for asbestos documents. I also 16 know for a fact that these documents have been 17 collected and have been reviewed and are being 18 reviewed by our attorneys and are beingincluded in 19 the asbestos repository. 20 Q. Is this an ongoing effort? I mean when you say 21 are being reviewed you mean literally ongoing in the 22 present? 23 A. Yes, it is, absolutely, yes, it is. In the 24 course of our merger with Dow chemical corporation 25 Union Carbide's records policies, per se, are Court Reporters Associates o 1 different from Dow's records retention policies, and 40 2 as part of my job responsibility last year as a 3 matter of fact I have traveled to all the domestic 4 Union Carbide major sites, done training for what the 5 Dow Chemical people called records coordinators in 6 their system, and as part of that training we have 7 indicated that there is this asbestos issue, when you 8 are looking -- when you are reviewing your documents 9 look for this, keep this in mind, do not destroy any 10 documents, because of course we have a hold order; 11 and, yes, documents have been located in the last 12 year and have been included in the repository for 13 sure. Page 37 debor.txt Q. Mm-hmm. Okay. Let me just go back to one of my 15 earlier questions. So when you have got that overall 16 corporate records center and then Miss Ruszczyk? 17 A. Ruszczyk. 18 Q. Ruszczyk, pardon me, Miss Ruszczyk is in charge 19 of the asbestos repository, when -- when you have 20 something that pertains to asbestos does Ms. Ruszczyk 21 just come and take it and put it in hers or does she 22 make a copy so that she has got a special asbestos 23 subset of your overall larger set? 24 A. Both have occurred, actually, copies have been 25 made -- been made. Again, with this Dow initiative Court Reporters Associates 1 what I have suggested is that originals if it is not 41 2 needed at the sites for whatever reason, for example 3 ongoing asbestos remediation at a production 4 facility. If there is some state regulation, which 5 Texas does, by the way, have where you have to 6 maintain it on-site for X amount of years. 7 Q. Mm-hmm. 8 A. Then a copy is made in those cases. So the short 9 answer to your question is both copies and originals 10 have been included in the repository. 11 Q. well, I take it from that then that there may be 12 records that Ms. Ruszczyk has that you -- that you as 13 records custodian in Morrisville no longer have 14 because that actually has been physically removed 15 from Vermont to Park Avenue; is that right? Page 38 debor.txt 16 A. Absolutely. 17 Q. Do you maintain a separate grouping of asbestos18 related documents at the records center in 19 Morrisville? 20 A. No, we do not. As a matter of fact, it is my 21 hope that all or as many documents as these extensive 22 reviews are made areno longer at the corporate 23 records center but are in the asbestos repository. 24 Q. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. who conducts the reviews for 25 these asbestos-related documents? Court Reporters Associates 1 MS. NICOL: Vague, overbroad as to time and 2 scope. 3 Q. The reviews that you told me were ongoing you 4 have indicated that in -- that there have been 5 extensive investigations and that the people come - 6 travel to the corporate records center and review 7 documents - 8 A. That has occurred, yes. 9 Q. -- is that correct? okay, who are these people 10 that do that, who -- where do they fit in this? 11 A. Over the last 20 years you are asking? 12 Q. No. I am not asking you -- and I am certainly 13 not asking you names of individuals. What I am 14 trying to understand is -- well, let me ask it a 15 different way. 16 Do you have personal knowledge of how the 17 asbestos repositorycame to be created? Page 39 42 debor.txt MS. NICOL: Asked and answered. I think 19 that's what he has been talking about for the last 15 20 minutes. Vague. 21 A. Are you talking about the point in time in 1980? 22 Q. well, let me be more specific. You said that in 23 1980 outside counsel started to collect asbestos24 related documents, correct? 25 A. That's correct. Court Reporters Associates 43 1 Q. Okay. So are the people that come to Vermont for 2 this purpose to check these documents, are these to 3 your knowledge either attorneys or members of their 4 staff? 5 A. Again we have had attorneys, paralegals from 6 outside counsel, we have had paralegals, clerks and 7 attorneys from inside union carbide. 8 Q. As I understand it Union Carbide was no longer 9 selling calidria after 1985, correct? 10 A. As I understand that is correct. 11 Q. Okay. So presumably then there would not be new 12 documents being generated -- new currently dated 13 documents being generated concerningcalidria, 14 correct? 15 MS. NICOL: Lacks foundation, calls for 16 speculation, vague and overbroad. 17 A. That's -- that is a vague question I think. I am 18 not sure what you are asking. 19 Q. Are -- is the records collection as you Page 40 debor.txt 20 indicated -- strike that. 21 is the asbestos repository growing and 22 continuing to grow because you -- because union 23 Carbide is finding old documents they hadn't 24 previously found or is it continuing to grow because 25 asbestos-related documents continue to be generated Court Reporters Associates 1 on an ongoing basis? 44 2 A. I think the answer to that is both. Again, as I 3 indicated under Dow Chemical they have a different 4 set of parameters. They are very cognizant of old 5 records being stored in file cabinets not under 6 custodianship particularly, so there is that 7 wonderful effort kind of going on from a records 8 point of view; and there is certainly new records 9 being generated, we have asbestos at our production 10 facilities that are currently being remediated and 11 that those are also being captured. 12 Q. when you say that you traveled to locations - 13 all the domestic major sites for purposes of training 14 people? 15 A. Yes. 16 Q. Concerning document reviews; is that correct? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. Are documents coming -- as a result of that 19 training and as a result of what you had done are 20 documents from these locations continuing to filter 21 back to your records center? Page 41 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 1 March 8th, 2002, to a number of different attorneys 126 2 by Jeffrey Simon, so that might help you to know to 3 whom to provide corrected copies. 4 MS. HUART: okay. Thank you. 5 A. Yes. 6 Q. Does that appear to be a business record of Union 7 Carbide? 8 A. Yes, it is. 9 Q. Maintained in the ordinary course of business? 10 A. Yes. Yes, ma'am. 11 Q. Thank you. I would like to hand you what's been marked Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5068 and ask you to review that. Thank you. Does that appear to be a record 14 kept in the ordinary course of business as a business 15 record of Union Carbide? 16 A. Yes, it does. 17 Q. I would like to show you Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5086 18 and ask you if that appears to be a business record 19 maintained in the ordinary course of business of 20 Union Carbide? 21 A. Yes, it does. 22 Q. Thank you. I would like to hand you Exhibit 5527 23 and ask you if that appears to be a business record 24 maintained in the ordinary course of business of 25 union Carbide? Court Reporters Associates Page 118 debor.txt 24 differences are between the two? I mean not - not 25 specifically paragraph by paragraph but overall? Court Reporters Associates a 1 MS. nicol: Beyond the scope of the 2 deposition. 3 A. As far as program we are -- we are very similar. 4 Again, they have a retention manual, they have a 5 schedule of retention policies based on type of 6 document. Some of the differences in terminology by 7 type obviously had to be meshed. Some of their 8 retention policies are shorter. We have been 9 grappling with that obviously as we have mapped ours 10 to theirs. And some of theirs are longer, and a 11 number are the same. They have freeze letters which 12 is our old generic hold orders. Again, the freeze 13 letters currently are specific to union carbide. 14 The training that we did with all the Union 15 Carbide employees pointed them toward the Dow records 16 retention and information web site that we're 17 cognizant and ahead of that. So there is some minor 18 differences but overall similar programs. 19 Q. Mm-hmm. Do you coordinate with anyone affiliated 20 with Dow in connection with these records -- this 21 effort to merge the efforts? 22 A. Okay, again, they have a records organization 23 like we have. Actually I extensively traveled with 24 their Canadian records manager to the Union carbide 25 sites so again we could introduce the Dow folks to Page 43 46 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 1 union carbide, and they of course taught me as well 47 2 as teaching the new Dow procedures and policies. 3 Q. Okay. Who is the Canadian records manager that 4 you traveled with? 5 A. Ray Morgan. And we also interfaced with a Don 6 Fillemore who is their global records manager. 7 MS. NICOL: Since you are --we have been 8 going about an hour and a half are you coming close 9 to closing this area so that we can take a break 10 sometime soon? 11 MS. HUART: Yeah, I can. 12 Q. You told me that your first -- your first 13 position was -- was as an informationanalyst and 14 what that involved, and I have some idea of what you 15 do now. Can you tell me what the next position was 16 that you held after information analyst? 17 A. Oh, as far as the specific job title, no, I 18 cannot. Again, in form and fashion my job has really 19 not changed over the years. 20 Q. The technology, however, I will bet has. I mean 21 I guess the technology has probably changed the way 22 you do your job I would assume? 23 A. Not substantially. As far as the elements of 24 technology, and, again, researching and maintaining 25 information, yes, that has; but, again, documents are Court Reporters Associates Page 44 debor.txt 1 documents, records are records, and the extraction 48 2 and synthesization of information is basically the 3 same. 4 Q. is -- is Mr. Growchoski? 5 A. Growchoski. 6 Q. Growchoski, pardon me, is his office physically 7 located at the Morrisville center? 8 A. No, he is in Midland, Michigan. 9 Q. And that you indicated to me was the Dow -- that 10 is the Dow headquarters for their records? 11 A. That is the Dow world headquarters, Midland, 12 Mi chigan. 13 Q. The -- of the six people that are at the 14 Morrisville facility then are you the most senior 15 person there? 16 A. No. Again, I report to Phil Fournier. 17 Q. Okay. Is he located in that facility? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. He is one of the six? 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. Okay. And so would you identify for me the other 22 individuals at that facility? 23 A. Yes, Lisa May, M-A-Y; Erik with a K, E-R-I-K, 24 Olesen, O-L-E-s-E-N; James Lane, L-A-N-E; and Ken 25 Freer, F-R-E-E-R. Court Reporters Associates Page 45 debor.txt 1 Q. Are all of the records being managed at the 49 2 corporate records center located on-site at that 3 particular facility or do you have documents that are 4 sent off-site as well? 5 A. NO. 6 ms. nicol: vague. 7 A. Everything is housed on-site within one building. 8 Q. Do you have a -- an estimate or some -- can you 9 give me some idea of the sort of the size or square 10 footage of that building, just roughly? 11 A. No, I don't recall the exact square footage. 12 Again, it is a pretty large building to house 75,000 13 boxes of records. 14 Q. I would think, is it multistory? 15 A. One story. 16 Q. Okay. Do Ms. May and Mr. Olesen and Lane and 17 Mr. -- Mr. Lane and Mr. Freer, do they have different 18 job duties or various job duties or do they all 19 report to you? Strike that, that wasn't - 20 Do -- do Ms. May and Messrs, olesen, Lane and 21 Freer report directly to you? 22 A. Through me to the manager. We work together. 23 ms. HUART: I am at a point where we could 24 stop if you would like to take a break. 25 the VIDEOGRAPHER: We're off the record at Court Reporters Associates 1 approximately 12:41 p.m. 2 (A lunch break was taken.) Page 46 50 debor.txt the videographer: One moment, please. We're back on the record at approximately 1:22 p.m. Q. Mr. DeBor, I would like to hand you what's been marked as Deposition Exhibit A and ask you to review paragraph three in that document, which for the record is the notice of deposition. A. Paragraph starting with pursuant to? Q. I'm sorry, the paragraph numbered three. A. Oh, I'm sorry. Q. For the record the witness is reviewing paragraph three which commences on page two and continues to page three of Exhibit A. A. Yes. Q. Sir, are you prepared to give testimony today concerning paragraph -- in response to paragraph three? A. Yes. Q. And specifically if you need a moment to look at it paragraph three concerns the documents that are listed on Exhibit B to this particular document which is Deposition Exhibit A. I apologize if that's confusing and I am going to open that -- open to that page for you. Court Reporters Associates Have you had an opportunity to see this document before? A. Yes, I have. Q. Are you prepared to give testimony today Page 47 debor.txt 5 concerning the documents listed on Exhibit B that are 6 authentic business records of the union Carbide 7 Company? 8 MS. NICOL: Objection, calls for a legal 9 conclusion. I would also at this time since we're 10 now talking specifically about the documents on 11 Exhibit B make a reservation of rights with regards 12 to any documents that are on that exhibit list that 13 in fact are privileged documents. It -- it has come 14 to our attention that certain privileged documents 15 may have inadvertently been produced, and we retain 16 the right to claim the privilege associated with 17 those documents, attorney/client and work product 18 privileges, and I will cite in particular four 19 documents on Plaintiffs' exhibit list, but this is 20 not an inclusive listing, Document No. 5031, Document 21 No. 5215, 5237 and 5378. 22 ms.huart: well, we certainly reserve the 23 right to argue that privileges have been waived with 24 respect to those -- those documents and any others 25 that have been produced previously. Court Reporters Associates 1 Q. With respect to -- well, actually I am glad that 52 2 the issue of privilege has been brought up. 3 As the records custodian of Union Carbide can 4 you tell me where the -- the privileged documents are 5 housed? 6 MS. NICOL: Assumes facts not in evidence, Page 48 debor.txt 7 calls for speculation, lacks foundation, vague. 8 MR. GLASSER: Also calls for a legal 9 conclusion. 10 Q. Are you aware of -- of any existence -- strike 11 that. 12 Can you answer the question that -- as I have 13 asked it? 14 MS. NICOL: Same objections. 15 A. No, I cannot. 16 Q. Do you have any knowledge concerning documents of 17 Union Carbide Corporation which the lawyers have 18 determined cannot be produced in litigation? 19 MS. NICOL: seeks attorney/client work 20 product privilege information, calls for a legal 21 conclusion. 22 A. No, I do not. That is the lawyer's bailiwick, 23 not mine. 24 Q. So sitting here today you actually don't know 25 where documents are kept that attorneys have Court Reporters Associates 1 determined are not to be produced; is that correct? 2 MS. NICOL: same objections, plus 3 argumentative, misstates testimony. 4 A. Again, I am not sure, privileged documents are 5 varied, what case, what -- 6 Q. I apologize, I didn't mean to speak over your 7 answer. Did you have a chance to finish your answer? 8 A. Yeah. Page 49 53 debor.txt 9 Q. Okay, when a document is located that is 10 relevant -- strike that. 11 when a document is located and identified as 12 being related to asbestos, and I think as you have 13 testified that is something that is earmarked for the 14 asbestos repository; is that correct? 15 A. For review by counsel. 16 Q. what is your understanding of the purpose of 17 their review? 18 MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope of his 19 deposition, seeks attorney/client work product 20 information, improper hypothetical and legal 21 conclusion. 22 Q. Do you have any idea why they review them? 23 MS. NICOL: Same objections, calls for 24 speculation, lacks foundation. 25 A. Again, as a records custodian we identify the Court Reporters Associates 1 documents and turn it over to counsel. They make 2 whatever determination they need to make. 3 Q. Do you have any knowledge concerning whether any 4 given document that you turn over actually makes it 5 to the asbestos repository - 6 MS. NICOL: same objections. 7 Q. -- once you turn it over? 8 A. I know in some specific cases they certainly 9 have, yes. 10 Q. I am not sure I understand your answer. Are you Page 50 54 debor.txt 11 saying that in some specific cases they do make it to 12 the asbestos repository or that they don't? 13 A. Again - 14 MS. NICOL: Same objections. 15 A. Many, many documents in the course of the last 20 16 years have been turned overto our attorneys for 17 review. I do know for afact that some ofthose 18 because I have seen at the back end, if you will, 19 that they have been included in the repository. 20 MS. HUART: I would like to make a request 21 on the record for any log of privileged documents 22 that counsel for Union Carbide maintains. And, by 23 the way, my requests also pertain to any of the cases 24 in which waters and Kraus is representing Plaintiffs 25 against union Carbide. Court Reporters Associates 1 MS. NICOL: And I respond to your request 2 the way that I have all the others, that that's 3 beyond the scope of the deposition that you have 4 noticed and we have agreed to take place in this 5 case. 6 Q. If you would turn back to this category No. 3 7 that I had previously asked you to look at on page 8 two of Plaintiffs' exhibit -- Deposition Exhibit A is 9 there anybody at Union Carbide who is more 10 knowledgeable than you are concerning the creation, 11 storage, retention and authenticity of documents 12 listed on Exhibit B? Page 51 55 debor.txt 13 A. I don't believe so, no. 14 Q. Are you prepared to give testimony today as to 15 whether -- strike that. 16 Are you prepared to give testimony today as to 17 which documents listed on Exhibit B are not records 18 kept in the ordinary course of business of Union 19 Carbide? 20 MS. NICOL: Calls for a legal conclusion. 21 A. Again, I am not sure what you are asking. 22 Q. Have you -- as I understand your prior testimony 23 you have reviewed that list; is that correct? 24 A. Correct. 25 Q. Have you made an attempt to -- strike that. Court Reporters Associates 1 Have you or are you aware that counsel for 56 2 Plaintiffs produced to counsel for union Carbide the 3 documents that are listed on Exhibit B, or at least 4 most of them, did you -- are you aware of that, that 5 hard copies of those documents were given to counsel? 6 A. Again, I -- I don't know how you got those 7 documents. 8 Q. Okay. Are you -- objection nonresponsive. 9 Are you aware that the copies that we have - 10 that Plaintiffs' counsel has were actually copied and 11 sent to counsel for union carbide, did you know that? 12 MS. NICOL: why don't you just ask him if 13 he has seen copies of these documents that Plaintiffs 14 have provided. Page 52 debor.txt 15 MS. huart: I am going to -- I am really 16 formulating my questions the way I need and want to, 17 Ms. Nicol, but thank you for the tip. 18 A. No, I have no knowledge as to how you received 19 these documents. 20 Q. Objection nonresponsive. Have you reviewed any 21 documents that were provided by counsel for 22 Plaintiffs to counsel for Union carbide? 23 A. Again, I am not sure what you are asking. 24 Q. Okay. The documents that are listed on Exhibit 25 B -- Court Reporters Associates 1 A. Yes. 2 Q. Strike that. Counsel for -- are you aware that 3 counsel for Plaintiffs provided to counsel for union 4 Carbide the documents that they had that are listed 5 on Exhibit B, are you aware of that? 6 MS. NICOL: Unintelligible, vague, 7 overbroad. 8 A. Again, are you asking if I know that this entire 9 list was provided to you from our attorneys? 10 Q. No, the -- I am asking you the question are you 11 aware that we, counsel for Plaintiffs, provided to 12 counsel for Union Carbide hard copies of all of those 13 documents that you have in front of you? 14 A. Yes, I'm sorry, yes 15 Q. okay. 16 A. Yes, I am. Page 53 debor.txt 17 Q. All right. And have you had an opportunity to 18 review those documents? 19 A. Yes, I have. 20 Q. Have you reviewed every document that was 21 provided to your knowledge? 22 MS. NICOL: I am going to object as beyond 23 the scope since questioning is to be limited to prior 24 to and including 19 -- September 1968. 25 A. Yes, I have reviewed the documents on this list. Court Reporters Associates 1 Q. When you say you have reviewed the documents on 58 2 the list do you mean each one; is that correct? 3 MS. NICOL: Same objection. 4 A. To the best of my recollection yes. 5 Q. Did you attempt to retrieve from the Union Car - 6 any Union Carbide repository documents matching the 7 description of the documents listed on Exhibit B? 8 A. No, I did not. 9 Q. Did anyone under your super -- did you ask anyone 10 under your supervision to do so, to -- strike that. 11 MS. nicol: Beyond the scope. 12 Q. Did you -- I am rephrasing it. 13 Did you ask anyone under your supervision to 14 locate or attempt to retrieve the documents described 15 on Exhibit B to Deposition Exhibit A? 16 MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope of the 17 deposition, vague, overbroad, not something he was 18 required to do. Page 54 debor.txt 19 MS. HUART: And I am going to object to any 20 more speaking objections that are providing anything 21 more than a form objection to the question. 22 A. No, I did not. 23 Q. Am I correct, then, that you did not -- strike 24 that. 25 Am I correct that you reviewed the documents Court Reporters Associates 1 that Plaintiffs' counsel provided to Union Carbide 59 2 but did not compare them with documents in the 3 possession of union carbide at the repositories? 4 MS. NICOL: Same objections. 5 A. That is correct. 6 Q. Are you prepared to testify -- having seen all 7 the documents that were provided to union Carbide 8 listed in Exhibit B with respect to those documents 9 are you prepared to testify as to whether any of 10 those documents are authentic business records of 11 union Carbide? strike that. 12 MS. NICOL: vague, overbroad. 13 MS. HUART: strike that, I am rephrasing my 14 question. 15 Q. Having reviewed the documents that were provided 16 by Plaintiffs' counsel to Union Carbide that are 17 listed on Exhibit B are you prepared to testify as to 18 whether any of those documents are records kept in 19 the ordinary course of business of Union Carbide? 20 A. Yes, certainly. Page 55 debor.txt 21 Q. Are you prepared to testify -- to identify those 22 documents for me at this time? 23 A. Certainly. 24 Q. is it your -- strike that. 25 Are you prepared to testify as to whether any of Court Reporters Associates 1 the documents that you have reviewed are not 60 2 authentic business records of Union Carbide? Strike 3 that. 4 Are you prepared to testify as to whether any of 5 the documents that you have reviewed that are listed 6 on Exhibit B are not documents kept in the ordinary 7 course of business of union carbide? 8 MS. NICOL: Calls for speculation. 9 A. Yes, I believe there are a number of documents 10 that are not Union carbide documents. 11 Q. Are you able -- strike that. 12 Do you have a list or did you make a list - 13 strike that. 14 Did you make a list of documents that in your 15 opinion are not documents that are records kept in 16 the ordinary course of business of Union Carbide from 17 among these records that you reviewed? 18 A. No. 19 Q. when did you undertake this review of documents 20 that are listed on Exhibit B? 21 A. On Sunday and Monday of this week. 22 Q. So that would be March the 23rd and March the Page 56 debor.txt 23 24th; is that correct? 24 A. I will let you decide the date. 25 Q. Was that the first time that you had ever seen Court Reporters Associates 1 the documents that Plaintiffs provided to counsel 2 that are listed on Exhibit B? 3 MR. GLASSER: Objection, vague. 4 MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope of the notice, 5 harassing. 6 A. Had I seen some of these documents previously or 7 this - 8 Q. This particular collection? can we call this - 9 instead of using so many words to try to describe 10 this can you and I agree that we'll call it the - 11 can we just agree to call it the March 4th collection 12 since that was the day it went to counsel, is that -- 13 can we call it that? Is that all right with you? 14 MS. NICOL: Why don't you just call it 15 Plaintiffs'production. 16 MS. HUART: well, because it is not really 17 our production. I mean we produced it, we didn't - 18 it was produced as a courtesy and -- 19 MR. GLASSER:: How about Plaintiffs' 20 exhibits? 21 MS. NICOL: Yeah, it is -22 MS. HUART: Well, if I say Plaintiffs' 23 exhibits you are going to object that that's vague 24 and overbroad. So I just want to make sure we just Page 57 debor.txt 25 have some shorthand way of referring LU L I IC okay, Court Reporters Associates 1 why don't we call it the Plaintiffs' union Carbide 62 2 collection, all right? Is that all right with 3 everybody, Plaintiffs' Union Carbide collection? 4 Okay, was March the 23rd the -- is your nod of 5 the head a yes to -- 6 A. Yes. 7 Q. -- to my-- I'm sorry. 8 A. Okay. 9 Q. Is March the 23rd the first time that you saw the 10 Plaintiffs' Union carbide collection? 11 MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope of the 12 deposition questioning, unclear -- may be unclear to 13 him whether documents he saw was or was notpart of 14 that collection so it -- it assumes facts not in 15 evidence, and it lacks foundation, and most 16 definitely calls for his speculation, and more than 17 that it is irrelevant. 18 MR. GLASSER: And I would also like to just 19 add one thing, if you want to handle this as a group, 20 which it seems like you are trying to do, then maybe 21 we can work this out between the lawyers without 22 taking up the time ofthe testimony. 23 MS. huart: Can we go off the record, 24 please. 25 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: off the record at Page 58 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 1 approximately 1:42 p.m. 63 2 (A break was taken.) 3 MS. NICOL: in terms of resolving this 4 issue or question about the witness going through 5 Exhibit B what we have been talking about for the 6 last 30 minutes, and we have Plaintiffs' counsel from 7 Waters and Kraus in Long Beach, Michael Armitage, on 8 the phone as well who was involved in this 9 discussion, what -- what we are saying on behalf of 10 Union Carbide is consistent with paragraph one of our 11 letter agreement of March 22nd. Mr. DeBor is here 12 being produced as is the person most knowledgeable on 13 category three, and that he will need to be shown the 14 specific document that Plaintiffs request that he 15 give testimony about consistent with category three 16 simply because there is hundreds of documents on the 17 Exhibit B listing. Exhibit B listing is not entirely 18 accurate in terms of describing what document is 19 actually in the boxes that we received from 20 Plaintiff, and he -- there is no way he could 21 possibly have retained a memory of all the hundreds 22 of documents; however, in preparation for this effort 23 he has taken the time, and I might say considerable 24 time, and reviewed each of the documents Plaintiffs 25 produced in the boxes, the three boxes; however, the Court Reporters Associates Page 59 debor.txt 1 only documents he was not able to review are the 64 2 documents on Plaintiffs' exhibit list starting at 3 5700 all the way through the end because those were 4 never provided by Plaintiffs to us, and we have 5 requested them on multiple occasions and never 6 received them. And it is my understanding from Mr. 7 Armitage that Plaintiffs do not intend to use the 8 exhibits listed on the -- their list of 5700 to the 9 end. However, what we ask at this point rather than 10 waste any more time is we have offered him for this 11 category, he would be allowed to testify on this 12 category; however, what we did say in the deposition 13 agreement was that all questioning will be limited to 14 September '68 or prior. 15 To the extent that Plaintiffs seek to ask him 16 about documents post '68, which they may do, we are 17 not going to prevent them from doing that, it is 18 outside of the scope of our agreement for this 19 deposition in this case. 20 And additionally if they do decide to do that we 21 are not going to produce him for another day because 22 we have yet after all these hours of deposition to 23 have him asked a single question on a substantive 24 category that directly deals with the issues posted 25 in the motion for summary judgment that's pending, court Reporters Associates Page 60 65 debor.txt 1 and until that's done that's at Plaintiffs' peril if 2 they don't get to ask everything they want to in this 3 deposition if they elect to ask him about documents 4 in years past September 1968. 5 with that said I have also told Mr. Armitage, 6 and confirmed what he and I have talked about, that 7 in fact this deposition and its narrowed scope is 8 specifically for the Brauch case. We have not 9 noticed or accepted a notice in this case, and we 10 have an agreement with Plaintiffs' counsel that this 11 deposition is not for any other case but the Brauch 12 case. And that is in fact why the questioning is 13 limited to September '68 and prior to, because that 14 is all that's relevant as to the claims against union 15 Carbide in the Brauch case. 16 To the extent Plaintiffs seek a deposition of 17 Union Carbide in the Naughton case then that 18 deposition notice will be separately responded to 19 and -- and whoever we produce and whoever is 20 responsive to the categories will be a separate 21 deposition that takes place in that case or any other 22 litigation, and the only objection we may have to 23 burdensome and harassing is to the extent that there 24 is a deposition questioning gone over in those cases 25 that has already been covered in this case; however, Court Reporters Associates 1 we agree that there will be a separate deposition 2 responsive in the Naughton case in particular I can Page 61 66 debor.txt speak to because that's one that -- that Mr. Armitage 4 and I are working on together. 5 MR. ARMITAGE: Okay, well, just addressing 6 one of the things that you said there last, this is 7 Mike Armitage on behalf of the Plaintiffs, we have 8 agreed that the case -- this deposition has been 9 noticed in the Brauch case. Obviously any party is 10 free to use the deposition for any -- any reason 11 under the California evidence code as former 12 testimony or for whatever other purposes it may be 13 used, we are not agreeing that it may only be used 14 in the Brauch case, we are simply agreeing that it is 15 being noticed in the Brauch case only. 16 And I want to make very clear that because we 17 are agreeing to go forward and ask limited questions about authenticity of documents and we will not have time, from the conditions you have imposed, to ask 20 about all of the documents on our exhibit list that 21 we are ready to ask about today that there will be no 22 further argument or no further objection to do 23 another deposition of Mr. DeBor being burdensome and 24 harassing based solely on the fact that his 25 deposition was already taken in the Brauch case. Court Reporters Associates D 67 1 I understand that's what you are -- you are 2 saying or what you have just said in connection with 3 the upcoming Naughton deposition and other cases that 4 we may choose to notice the deposition of union Page 62 debor.txt Carbide's person most knowledgeable. 6 I cannot agree that we will be limited in the 7 future deposition of this witness or of a person most 8 knowledgeable of Union carbide to just ask questions 9 that weren't asked in this deposition because we have 10 the problem that I alluded to off the record that 11 other Defendants may be present in that case who may 12 have objections to documents and we will therefore 13 need to ask authenticity questions at least of Mr. 14 DeBor or whoever the person most knowledgeable is 15 unless those issues can be addressed. I simply want 16 to make it clear that by agreeing to go forward we 17 are not agreeing that this is our only chance to 18 depose Mr. DeBor in any Waters and Kraus litigation. 19 I also want to object very strenuously to any time limit being imposed on this deposition. There was no time limit discussed, we obviously have 22 inherent time pressures of attempting to get this 23 deposition completed so we can respond to the motion 24 for summary judgment, we also have trial coming up. 25 We are being placed in an unenviable position of Court Reporters Associates 1 being forced to limit questioning that we would 2 otherwise ask of Mr. DeBor in order to get done in 3 time to oppose your motion for summary judgment but 4 at the same time we are being told this is your one 5 shot at Mr. DeBor in this case. 6 So with that being said we are willing to go Page 63 68 debor.txt 7 forward and ask limited questioning about documents 8 in the case, but we are -- we are clearly not waiving 9 our right to redepose Mr. DeBor or -- in a future 10 case either individually or as a person most 11 knowledgeable, and we do not agree to any time 12 limits, and we reserve the right to make all 13 appropriate arguments with the court if we do not 14 finish this deposition today or whatever time limit 15 you intend to impose. 16 MS. HUART: i would just like to -- I would 17 like to append to Mr. Armitage's statement also the 18 clarification that there has been no agreement 19 reached between counsel concerning the depositions 20 that were cross-noticed in the Texas cases today, and 21 to the extent that your comments might have been 22 interpreted otherwise I wanted to make clear that 23 there has -- there was no agreement concerning those 24 cross-notices and those cross-notices have -- were 25 not withdrawn in any way. I understand that there Court Reporters Associates 1 has been a motion to quash. 69 2 And also with respect to the time pressures that 3 we're under I also want to -- and I am not sure that 4 this was on the record or off the record, but we did 5 receive the supplemental responses to discovery at 6 seven p.m. California time last night, and there has 7 not been an ample time to review those responses. 8 Mr. DeBor, as I understand it, verified those Page 64 debor.txt 9 responses, and that issue has got to wait for -- that 10 issue cannot be addressed in the context of this 11 deposition today as there has not been sufficient 12 time for counsel to compare and contrast the 13 different discovery responses and whatever role Mr. 14 DeBor played in verifying those responses. So that 15 is -- that is something that is -- that we are not 16 going to have an opportunity or we -- and we 17 strenuously object to being forced to -- to having 18 asked those questions having not been given those 19 responses until very late last night. 20 MR. armitage: you should just add that 21 those responses total 201 pages. 22 MS. HUART: Yes, thank you. 23 MS. NICOL: Dust in response to -- to all 24 this to deal with the latest thing of the amended 25 discovery responses they were attempted to be faxed Court Reporters Associates 70 1 earlier and the Plaintiffs' counsel's fax machine was 2 busy for a little bit of time and I think that's why 3 it reached later. I had alerted Mr. Armitage 4 yesterday to the fact that they were coming, and I 5 further provided a cover letter to Mr. Armitage 6 outlining the small amount of discovery requests that 7 in fact were amended so that it could be very easy to 8 go through and see each discovery request or 9 discovery items that in fact had been amended. And 10 the only reason it totaled 210 pages was so that we Page 65 debor.txt 11 could give you a complete set of the discovery so 12 there would be no argument that you didn't have a 13 complete set, that you just got the amended, but I 14 did highlight in the cover letter the selected items 15 that in fact were amended. 16 To the extent that you elect not to ask him 17 questions about the amended responses, that's your 18 choice. The only thing that I point out is again 19 this is discovery -- these discovery responses are 20 not contained within the scope of the deposition 21 notice anyway. You noticed a person most 22 knowledgeable deposition notice and the discovery 23 requests and the responses don't exactly fall 24 squarely. 25 To the extent that you want to ask him questions Court Reporters Associates 1 about that today, you are more than welcome to ask 71 2 him questions about it. I would just put on the 3 record the fact that to the extent that you have some 4 continuing right to take a further deposition based 5 on getting amended responses that's really not 6 covered by your notice that you served. I know you 7 would like your notice to say more than it does, but 8 it doesn't. 9 Additionally Mr. Armitage and Andy Waters and 10 myself did have a discussion specifically last 11 Tuesday about this deposition, and I did at that time 12 indicate this deposition would not go beyond one day, Page 66 debor.txt 13 there was no reason it had to go beyond one day, and 14 the only reason we started at 11a.m. is because 15 Plaintiffs' counsel wanted to make sure that everyone 16 in this case, the Defendants, had a right to come and 17 do anything at the deposition they thought they 18 needed to preserve their rights, and calling a 19 deposition for a case that's venued in Los Angeles at 20 any earlier than 8:00 a.m. was not considered to be 21 reasonable, and it was agreed to by the three of us 22 on the phone at the time that 8:00 a.m. was the best 23 we could do in terms of noticing it for a west Coast 24 case which we're governed by the time frame. 25 Additionally I have agreed that we will respond Court Reporters Associates 1 to the person most knowledgeable deposition notice 72 2 that we have in another case. I want to make sure 3 that we're very clear I am not agreeing to any 4 separate deposition notice that Plaintiffs have 5 served with regards to seeking to take Mr. DeBor's 6 deposition individually separate and apart from 7 asking for a person most knowledgeable deposition. 8 That deposition notice for his deposition 9 individually as an employee I will tell you right now 10 you will have serious problems with that deposition 11 because it is not -- the category beyond person most 12 knowledgeable that he would be responsive to are well 13 beyond the scope of what you would be entitled to 14 get, and it is burdensome, harassing and that's all Page 67 debor.txt 15 that it is about. So I want to be clear that when we 16 talk about a deposition in another case I am not in 17 any way stipulating that Plaintiffs' individual 18 notice of Mr. DeBor is in fact appropriate or 19 reasonable in any way. 20 MR. ARMITAGE: Well, the issue of whether 21 you can prevent an individual deposition of Mr. DeBor 22 is a totally different issue that's not covered by 23 our discussions here and has not been noticed in this 24 case, we'll address that in Naughton. I don't think 25 there is any way that you can prevent that court Reporters Associates 1 deposition, but again that's a discussion for another 2 day. But I just want to again object very 3 strenuously to the manner in which this deposition 4 has been made available to us. On one hand we were 5 given one day -- less than one day, about two thirds 6 of a day, not even including breaks and time for 7 discussion, to complete a discovery deposition of a 8 witness that you are telling us to ask all your 9 questions, so you have set the deposition up to fail. 10 You have set it up so we can't possibly achieve what 11 we need to achieve. I disagree that it has been a 12 meaningful or reasonable opportunity to depose this 13 individual. I reserve all rights to make those 14 arguments to the court in this case and in any future 15 case, and I again want to makeabundantly clear that 16 by agreeing to go forward today and ask the limited Page 68 73 debor.txt 17 questions about documents that we -- that you have 18 represented that you will not take the position that 19 further depositions of Mr. DeBor or as a person most 20 knowledgeable in other cases cannot go forward 21 because it would be burdensome and harassing based on 22 the fact that he has been recently produced in the 23 Brauch case. 24 MS. NICOL: I have already - 25 MR. ARMITAGE: if you have issue with that Court Reporters Associates 1 I would like to hear about it now because I am -- I 2 am concerned that that objection will be raised and 3 that you will point to this one deposition, limited 4 as it was, and argue to the court that was their 5 shot, judge, any further attempts at deposing Mr. 6 DeBor as a PMK are burdensome and harassing, so I 7 want to make sure that we're clear about that. You 8 have indicated to me that you will be producing a 9 person most knowledgeable in the Naughton case, 10 whether it is Mr. DeBor or someone else, and that you 11 will not be taking the position that well they have 12 already had a person most knowledgeable deposition in 13 the Brauch case two weeks ago or three weeks ago, 14 they can't possibly need another one. 15 MS. NICOL: I think I have very clearly 16 stated on the record that that would happen, and you 17 and I have talked about that happening, what I did 18 say is I would not agree to an individual deposition Page 69 74 debor.txt 19 of Mr. DeBor, and what I did say is the only claim of 20 burden and oppression with regard to prior testimony 21 would simply be questions that he has been asked in 22 this deposition. 23 MR. armitage: And I explained to you what 24 our concerns were about that, but we can deal with 25 that as they come up in that case if it means getting Court Reporters Associates 1 the court involved, but as I understand you you are 75 2 agreeing that a person most knowledgeable deposition 3 will take place in the Naughton case and that you 4 will not be pointing to this deposition as our -- our 5 chance at doing a person most knowledgeable 6 deposition of a union Carbide employee in waters & 7 Kraus cases. 8 MS. nicol: I have said it now about three 9 different times exactly what my agreement is in that 10 regard, and I am not going to go through it again. 11 That's -- it is now four hours after this deposition 12 was noticed to start and we have not yet had a 13 substantive question directed to the summary 14 judgment. This has been a colossal waste of time so 15 far, I suggest you move on. And I want one last 16 thing put on the record. The deposition scope is 17 exactly what we agreed upon painstakingly after a 18 week and a half of negotiations, and we are not 19 preventing you from asking anything that was agreed 20 upon in that scope of that deposition. Page 70 debor.txt 21 MR. ARMITAGE: As long as we can ask the 22 questions in the two thirds of the day before breaks 23 that you have allotted us. 24 MS. huart: Well, you know, I have also - 25 as long as we're going to -- you know, if we're going Court Reporters Associates a 1 to be limited, and clearly that's what this 76 2 deposition notice does, and there was an agreement, 3 it says shall continue from day to day excluding 4 Saturdays and holidays until completed. So if we're 5 not done by 5:30 today, which is the time as I 6 understand it that this building closes down, this 7 deposition continues from day to day excluding 8 Saturdays and holidays until it is completed. There 9 is -- there is no other way around that, and there is 10 nothing in the letter agreement that alters that, 11 that's what it says. 12 MS. nicol: And what I said is you will 13 need to take that up with the court, and the very 14 first thing the court will review is the E-transcript 15 from this deposition where not a substantive question 16 relating to the summary judgment opposition has been 17 asked after four hours into the deposition. So I am 18 telling you right now that will be an issue for the 19 court to resolve, it will not go beyond today. 20 Plaintiffs have wasted too much time not getting at 21 the core issues and that's not our problem. 22 MS. HUART: The issues are the creation, Page 71 debor.txt 23 storage and retention of -- and authenticity of these 24 documents. That is what is in the notice. That has 25 been the subject of my questions. His testimony -- Court Reporters Associates 1 MS. NICOL: The last four hours. 77 2 MS. HUART: His testimony -- oh, and I 3 suppose I asked him questions during lunch. I don't 4 think so, Farah, I don't think so. 5 MS. NICOL: There was a 30 minute lunch 6 break. The record should reflect there was a 30 7 minute lunch break that was taken, not your standard 8 lunch break. 9 MS. HUART: Well, you know, this is - 10 MS. NICOL: we are wasting more time. 11 MS. HUART: This is really not productive, 12 it really isn't. 13 MS. NICOL: I agree. Let's move on with 14 your next question. 15 MS. huart: i think the notices stand for 16 themselves, this deposition continues from day to day 17 until completed. He is done when he is done. 18 MR. armitage: okay, I am -- with that said 19 I am -- I am signing off. 20 MS. HUART: Thanks, Mike. 21 MS. NICOL: Dust so you know, Mike, that 22 will be taken up with the court. He will not be 23 produced beyond today. Imade clear of that in our 24 discussion. And additionally the colossal waste of Page 72 debor.txt 25 time we have had happen so far will not inure to Court Reporters Associates D 1 Plaintiffs' benefit before the court in trying to get 2 an extra deposition, so I want to be clear he will 3 not be here tomorrow. 4 MR. ARMITAGE: Well, okay, yeah, I hear 5 you say that. I don't recall us discussing that, it 6 is not in the agreement, I never remember you saying 7 it was a one -- one day limit. Clearly we had all 8 hoped to get it done in one day. I was led to 9 believe there was some limitations about what his 10 knowledge was, and in fact the parties argued and 11 included in the agreement agreeing to disagree as to 12 whether Union Carbide has fully complied with 13 responding to this category, that being category 14 three of the deposition notice, because there was 15 some concerns about the witness having limited 16 knowledge which led us to believe that he would have 17 limited knowledge and would not be able to testify 18 about all of the documents. Now we're finding out 19 that's not true, he actually has all the knowledge 20 that we need, but webetter ask our questions quickly 21 because we have less than one day to do it, so I 22 don't agree that that's reasonable. Any time limit 23 is not stated in the --in the agreement that we 24 signed and as you said we very meticulously agreed 25 to, so I disagree that there is any time limit been 78 Page 73 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 1 imposed and I think that we are entitled to ask the 79 2 questions, and the record will speak for itself as 3 far as whether we have, you know, engaged in the 4 colossal waste of time as you suggest. 5 I think we're entitled to ask foundational 6 questions and background questions about the 7 witness's knowledge and nowhere in the code of civil 8 procedure am I aware that Defendant gets to dictate 9 what -- what questions the Plaintiff may ask as far 10 as background of a witness and trying to establish 11 what the witness in fact does and doesn't know; but, 12 again, that's an issue for the court to resolve. 13 MS. NICOL: One -- one clarification is 14 that Mr. DeBor is being produced as the current 15 employee of Union Carbide who is most knowledgeable 16 on category three. That does not mean that he knows 17 everything and every answer to every question that 18 you may ask with regard to the category three. His 19 knowledge here today that he will give, when he is 20 finally asked the first question with regards to 21 these exhibits, will show you that his knowledge is 22 exactly as has been represented to you all along, but 23 you are never going to find that out if you don't ask 24 the questions. 25 MS. huart: Actually, Farah, that question Court Reporters Associates Page 74 debor.txt 1 was asked, and in response to my question Mr. DeBor 2 testified under oath that there is no one that has 3 more knowledge on category three than he does, he is 4 it as far as the Union Carbide Company is concerned, 5 and that is his testimony, and that is what's in the 6 record. So you can -- 7 MS. NICOL: That's 100 percent accurate. 8 MS. HUART: You can try to diminish that, 9 but that's what this record reflects as we sit here 10 right now. No one knows more about the creation, 11 storage, retention and authenticity of documents 12 listed on Exhibit B than the gentleman seated to my 13 right. He is here - 14 MS. NICOL: We both agree, we both agree 15 100 percent with that statement. The question is, 16 what knowledge does he have. The fact that someone 17 is the most knowledgeable in Union Carbide's current 18 employment on that issue does not mean he has the 19 knowledge to answer every question. No one else has 20 the knowledge to answer every question, but he is the 21 most knowledgeable. You have to explore what that 22 knowledge is. You haven't done that yet. 23 MS. HUART: I know what my purpose here is, 24 and I am attempting to get this deposition moving. 25 MS. NICOL: Let's move on. 80 Court Reporters Associates 81 1 MR. ARMITAGE: Let's move on. I am going Page 75 debor.txt 2 to sign off. 3 MS. HUART: Thank you, Mike. 4 MR. armitage: okay. Holly, call me 5 separately if you need to discuss anything about 6 scope or documents, but I assume you - 7 MS. HUART: Thank you, I will. 8 MR. ARMITAGE: Thank you. 9 the videographer: we're back on the record 10 approximately 3:09 p.m. This is the start of tape 11 two. 12 Q. Hello again, Mr. DeBor. 13 A. Good afternoon. 14 Q. I believe the -- the last question that I asked 15 you was whether you were prepared to offer testimony 16 concerning whether the documents that you reviewed 17 Sunday and Monday were business records of Union 18 Carbide, is that -- I believe that's -- I believe 19 that was the last question that I asked you. 20 A. Correct, maintaining - 21 MS. NICOL: Calls for a legal conclusion. 22 Q. I'm sorry? 23 A. Maintained in the normal course of business. 24 Q. Yes. 25 A. That's correct. Court Reporters Associates 82 1 Q. And you indicated to me that -- that you could in 2 fact do that with respect to some documents but I - 3 but in order for you to do that is it -- am I correct Page 76 debor.txt 4 that I have to show you the document? 5 A. Yes, that is correct. 6 Q. Okay. I would like to then show you the document 7 that's been marked Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5378 and ask 8 you if this is a document maintained in the ordinary 9 course of business? 10 MS. nicol: I am going to renew my 11 objection that I previously made with regards to that 12 specific document as being a privileged and 13 confidential document. 14 Q. Have you seen that document before? 15 MS. NICOL: As long as we can have an 16 understanding I am going to have a continuing 17 objection to all the questions surrounding this 18 document based on attorney -- attorney/client work 19 product privileges that I asserted at the beginning 20 of this line of questioning. 21 MS. HUART: And I am going to have -22 MS. NICOL: Is that agreeable? 23 MS. HUART: And I am going to have a 24 continuing reservation of our rights to argue that 25 all attorney/client privilege and work product Court Reporters Associates 1 doctrine privileges have been waived. 2 ms. nicol: That's fine as long as we have 3 an understanding it is continuing with regards to all 4 questions on this document. 5 MS. huart: i understand that, Ms. Nicol. Page 77 83 debor.txt 6 A. Again, I don't remember the document 7 specifically, in the last two days' review there 8 were three entire boxes, I believe you indicated 878 9 or thereabouts documents -- items, and, again, as far 10 as the creation of the documents I really have to say 11 that in 1975 I was not working for the corporation. 12 I certainly do not have any direct knowledge about 13 the asbestos business or any other business that 14 Union carbide conducted other than through my records 15 involvement. This does appear to be a document 16 created in the normal course of business at Union 17 Carbide. I am certainly familiar with the names 18 involved and the people that are copied on this 19 document. Thank you. 20 Q. Thank you. can you tell me, sir, is there 21 anything about that document that gives any pause or 22 hesitation or question in your mind concerning the 23 fact that that is a business record of union Carbide? 24 MS. NICOL: vague, ambiguous, asked and 25 answered, calls for speculation beyond what he has Court Reporters Associates 1 already told you. 84 2 A. Yeah, I believe the attachments are referenced in . 3 the letter, and, again, the receiver of this letter 4 presumably was Bill Thurber. That is a name familiar 5 to me as well as a number of the other people that 6 were copied on this document. 7 Q. I take it then that that -- that means that your Page 78 debor.txt 8 response is no there isn't anything about this 9 document that raised a question in your mind? 10 A. No, there is not. 11 MS. NICOL: Same objections plus 12 argumentative. 13 Q. with respect to the Roderman case -- strike that. 14 with respect to litigation in which Union 15 Carbide is involved am I correct that there is a 16 repository of documents that relate to cases in which 17 Union Carbide is involved? 18 MS. NICOL: vague, unintelligible, beyond 19 the scope. 20 A. I really don't understand that question. 21 Q. Okay. I would like to hand you what is 22 Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5246 and ask you to look at the 23 answer to interrogatory No. 15 which begins on page 24 26. 25 MS. NICOL: Ms. Huart, I just want to have a Court Reporters Associates 0 1 clear understanding. You understand we have a 2 continuing objection for documents that are post 3 September '68 but of course I am letting you ask the 4 questions about, do we have that understanding? 5 MS. HUART: I understand that you have a 6 continuing objection to probably just about anything 7 I want to ask this witness, and you are free to make 8 whatever objections -- 9 MS. NICOL: Well, if you like I can object page 79 85 debor.txt 10 to every 11 MS. HUART: You are free to object -12 MS. nicol: I can object to every single 13 question -14 MS. HUART: You are free to object -15 MS. NICOL: --if you like. 16 MS. HUART: You can object however you 17 would like to 18 A. Is that page 15? 19 Q. Yes. NO, sir, I1'm sorry, it is -- this is -- 20 you have 5246? Did I hand you the right one? I did, 21 okay. Can you find --it starts on page 26 actually, 22 it is Interrogatory Answer No. 15, and it starts on 23 page -- starts on page 26 at the top of the page. 24 A. item 16, Interrogatory No. 16. 25 Q. It is at the -- it is the answer to interrogatory Court Reporters Associates 1 No. 15 and it starts at the top of page 26. At the 86 2 bottom of page 25 are objections to that 3 interrogatory and at the top of page 26 is the 4 responsive answer of Union Carbide. 5 MS. NICOL: What's the question? 6 MS. HUART: There is no question pending 7 right now. I have asked him to turn to the page. 8 Q. At the top of page 26, and if you read along with 9 me, Mr. DeBor, it says, quote, union carbide was 10 first named in a personal injury suit alleging 11 asbestos exposure in 1972, many if not most cases Page 80 debor.txt 12 which named union Carbide turned out not to involve 13 any union Carbide products at all, such claims are 14 maintained alphabetically by Plaintiffs' name not by 15 state, upon Plaintiffs' request Union Carbide will 16 make its list available for Plaintiffs for review and 17 replication at a suitable time and place. 18 Did I read that correctly? 19 A. Yes, you did. 20 Q. okay, what -- my question for you as the 21 individual most knowledgeable about storage and 22 retention of documents can you tell me where those 23 claims and where those types of litigation documents 24 are stored? 25 MS. nicol: I will -- Court Reporters Associates 1 A. Again I think the response references a list. 2 Q. Mm-hmm. 3 A. They do not reference claims and files I don't 4 believe. 5 Q. Okay. 6 MS. nicol: I am just going to -- 7 Q. is -8 A. I'm sorry. 9 MS. NICOL: I am just trying to work in an 10 objection here without stepping on Ms. Huart's toes 11 and stepping on your toes, so the objection is that 12 that question goes beyond the scope of category three 13 which asks about documents that are specifically Page 81 87 debor.txt 14 listed on Exhibit B and not about other documents 15 that are not listed on Exhibit B which are being 16 asked about here. 17 Q. So I guess my -- my question is do you -- do you 18 have a -- do you know what my question is or do I 19 need to have it read back? 20 A. Could you read both questions back. 21 (The reporter read back the requested matter.) 22 A. And so are you asking about the list? 23 Q. I was asking about the claims and the list and 24 you can -- why don't you answer it separately for 25 each. Court Reporters Associates 1 MS. NICOL: Same objection. 88 2 A. okay. I am aware of a number of claims that are 3 maintained at the corporate records center, and I am 4 not aware of where the list resides. 5 Q. Do you know who would know where this list 6 resides? I mean who -- strike that. 7 who would you go to to find out? 8 A. our counsel. 9 Q. So if a -- if an individual wanted to obtain 10 documents or litigation-related documents relevant to 11 the Roderman case which is the subject of -- of 12 Exhibit 5378 is there anyplace specific in the Union 13 Carbide records retention center where they would go 14 to see the documents pertaining to the Roderman 15 R-O-D-E-R-M-A-N Case? Page 82 debor.txt 16 MR. GLASSER: Objection, vague. 17 MS. KING: Beyond the scope of the 18 deposition notice, it is getting to the point of 19 harassing and burdensome. This is just so not 20 relevant to what we're here for, and this is Lisa 21 King. 22 A. Again in the normal course of business one of our 23 clients or users within the corporate records center 24 is the corporate law department. They do store files 25 in Vermont, and we would get a request from the law Court Reporters Associates 89 1 department and we would do a search on in this case I 2 presume a litigation file by that name. 3 MS. HUART: Okay. I am making a request 4 that that be done. Thank you. 5 MS. NICOL: Same object -- same response to 6 all your other requests, that they are beyond the 7 scope of the deposition notice in this Brauch case. 8 Q. You can go ahead and put that back together, 9 thank you. I would like to hand you Plaintiffs' 10 Exhibit 5423 and ask you to take a look at this 11 document. 12 A. Again, I can't attest as to the completeness of 13 this document, the number of the pages are not 14 marked, but certainly in form or fashion again this 15 appears to be a Union carbide document that was 16 maintained in the course of normal business. 17 Q. Okay, with respect to the -- one of the Page 83 debor.txt 18 attachments in this document that's entitled 1969 19 Calidria Asbestos Business Plan is that -- can I ask 20 you, sir, whether that is a document that you recall 21 having seen before prior to this past Sunday or 22 Monday when you reviewed Plaintiffs' documents, if 23 you recall? 24 A. specifically no. 25 Q. is there any way that you could -- just from Court Reporters Associates 1 looking at that document is there any way that you 90 2 could provide any testimony concerning when that 3 document was created, the -- the 19 -- if you would 4 turn back to the business plan, the 1969 business 5 plan. 6 MS. NICOL: Lack of foundation, calls for 7 speculation. 8 A. Again, as far as actual creation I had no 9 involvement in these --in the business at that point 10 in time, it does appear to be. I would have no 11 indication from the face of the document that it was 12 produced at any other time than at around the time 13 when it is dated, but that would be pure speculation. 14 Q. Do you see a date on the document? 15 MS. NICOL: Other than in the text of the 16 document? You mean a dating of the document? 17 Q. Do you see a -- do you see anywhere that -- 18 that -- where that document is -- bears -- bears a 19 date such as, you know, a date of its creation or Page 84 debor.txt 20 drafting? 21 MS. NICOL: Asked and answered, calls for 22 speculation, lacks foundation, vague. 23 A. As far as a date that's attributable in the 24 normal sense of the word, no, there is not. 25 Q. And I am -- as I understand it you in your Court Reporters Associates 1 capacity really can't offer any testimony that goes 91 2 beyond that in terms of dating that particular 3 document, is that true? 4 A. That's correct. 5 Q. Thank you. For the purposes of this deposition 6 now as I understand it before we go -- before we go 7 further and review more of these records your 8 testimony is that the -- this particular document, 9 the 5423 that I just showed you, appears to be a 10 document that was maintained in the regular course of 11 business of Union carbide; is that correct? 12 A. That's correct, yes. 13 Q. And as far as your testimony here today is -- am 14 I correct that you are not able to offer testimony as 15 to whether it was the regular course of business of 16 Union carbide for an employee or representative of 17 Union Carbide with knowledge of the act, event, 18 condition, opinion recorded on the document to make 19 the record or to transmit information thereof to be 20 included in such a record, am I correct that you are 21 not able to actually make -- testify on that? Page 85 debor.txt 22 MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope, vague, 23 overbroad. 24 A. Again what -- what I am unable to do was 25 authenticate the creation of the document. Court Reporters Associates D 1 Q. Okay. Am I also correct that you are unable to 92 2 testify as to whether this record was made at or near 3 the time of the act, event, condition, opinion, or 4 reasonably soon thereafter, that's reflected in this 5 document? 6 MS. NICOL: Calls for speculation, asked 7 and answered. 8 A. I am not sure what your distinction is. 9 Q. There are certain acts and events and conditions 10 and opinions reflected in these documents, and what I 11 am trying to get at is whether or not you as the 12 records custodian here in category three can offer an 13 opinion as to whether this particular record 5423 and 14 including its attachments were made at or near the 15 time of the events recorded in this document? 16 A. Again, I would have no reason to believe, and as 17 a records custodian I have never been asked the 18 question once a document appears to be a Union 19 Carbide document if you are asking was this --is 20 this a legal document, is this a copy, is this -- was 21 this forged, was this -- again, it -- I have no 22 reason to disbelieve that it is not a Union Carbide 23 document, I have no reason to disbelieve that it was Page 86 debor.txt 24 not created in the normal course of business, but I 25 can't authenticate that. Court Reporters Associates 1 Q. okay. 93 2 A. That's where we stand. And, again, I don't 3 believe -- this is a business, this is 1969, 30 some 4 years ago. This was a small piece of our business of 5 a -- of a larger piece of our business, and, again, 6 a -- a few pages from many, many documents that were 7 created many years ago. 8 MR. GLASSER: I would like to move to 9 strike the answer to the extent Mr. DeBor was using 10 the term authenticate in a nonlegal sense. 11 THE DEPONENT: Right. 12 MS. HUART: But Mr. DeBor is here to 13 authenticate these documents. 14 MR. GLASSER: He is not saying that he 15 can't authenticate them, he is saying that he 16 couldn't authenticate what was done when it was 17 created which he was using the term in a - 18 MS. HUART: in a lay sense. 19 MR. GLASSER: In a lay sense. 20 MS. HUART: Okay. So for purposes of 21 authenticating the documents for this particular case 22 is that what is -- is that not what Mr. DeBor is here 23 to do? 24 MR. GLASSER: Yes, it is. 25 MS. HUART: Assuming that he can do so. Page 87 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 94 1 MR. GLASSER: The ones that he can 2 authenticate he will. 3 MS. huart: Okay. So - 4 MS. nicol: And, Ms. Huart, just -- ms. 5 Huart, you just need to be real clear with Mr. DeBor 6 because authenticate is technically a legal term. 7 The only thing that I would ask, and I think you just 8 saw that a few minutes ago where -- where what we 9 understand is authenticate may be different than what 10 he was saying in his response, if you could maybe 11 just ask him instead of using the legal term 12 authenticate what specifically you are asking about 13 with regards to the document. I think that way we'll 14 have a clear record and he will have a clear 15 understanding about what you are asking in that 16 regard. 17 Q. if I ask you whether or not this -- does this 18 record appear to you to be a copy -- a true and 19 correct copy of a Union Carbide business record would 20 you be able to testify as to that? 21 A. Yes, it does appear to be a accurate copy, again, 22 without comparing it to the original; but we will 23 certainly indicate that this is a -- appears to be a 24 Union carbide document maintained in the normal 25 course of business. Page 88 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 1 Q. If you had to find your -- your copy -- acopy at 2 the records center of 5423, Plaintiffs'Exhibit ? 3 5423 - 4 A. Correct. 5 Q. First of all, I mean as I understand your 6 testimony you haven't actually tried to do that, you 7 haven't tried to go and find the documents that are 8 on our list, correct? 9 A. That's correct. 10 Q. Okay, if you were to try to do that, and let's 11 just take this document as an example, what would you 12 need to do to find a document that would match this 13 description in your records center so that you could 14 look at them side by side? 15 A. Again, it would vary document by document. It - 16 depending on the exhibit, depending on the total 17 context of the document, we might have to go through 18 a folder that's a few inches thick, we might have to 19 go through an entire box to locate something like 20 that, so it would be a longand laborious process to 21 compare your exhibit to what we currently have in our 22 files. 23 Q. Okay. And am I correct that the description of 24 5423 as provided on Plaintiffs' exhibit list, from 25 that description alone you would not be able to 95 Court Reporters Associates a Page 89 debor.txt 1 locate the Union Carbide version of that document? 96 2 A. In some cases we could, yes, in some cases we 3 could not. Some cases we would need to look at the 4 document and make some other distinctions. 5 Q. With respect to looking you said you would need 6 to look in some folders, is there not a computerized 7 system that would enable you to for example do a date 8 search to pull up documents dated -- or collections 9 of documents with a cover sheet dated October 15th, 10 1969, is that not a searchable type of thing to do? 11 A. No, I am sorry to say that it is not. 12 Q. Mm-hmm. Are your documents organized by date or 13 subject matter or author? 14 A. The documents are organized by sending unit. 15 Again, the department and divisions that I have 16 already indicated. The key to that system is a 17 records transfer memo date as to how they sent it to 18 the corporate records center, and depending upon the 19 level of detail that is on the original transmittal 20 from the material it would make it easy or more 21 difficult depending on how detailed that original 22 entry was from the sender. 23 Q. What about Ms. Ruszczyk's collection, the 24 asbestos repository, wouldn't she have a way of 25 finding the Union Carbide -- the record at Union Court Reporters Associates 1 Carbide that is Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5423? Page 90 97 debor.txt 2 A. Again, it is my understanding that the repository 3 is not indexed in that manner, it is indexed by 4 maybe subject matter. 5 Q. It is not searchable via computer database? 6 A. Not that I am aware, no. 7 Q. Do you know whether Ms. Ruszczyk has made any 8 attempt to try to locate or match up Union Carbide 9 documents with those listed on Exhibit B? 10 A. I am not aware - 11 MS. nicol: Beyond the scope -- beyond the 12 scope of his deposition, calls for speculation on his 13 part, and I would just simply add that Plaintiffs 14 have been invited to go to the document repository 15 and review the documents there and have so far not 16 taken us up on that offer. 17 MS. KING: Ms. Huart, this is Lisa King, 18 and I am sorry to interrupt you but I just want to 19 ask you that pretty soon we need to be able to take a 20 break because we have another depo taking place in 21 this case at one and I am going to have to find 22 someone else to cover that deposition. 23 MS. huart: Yeah, well if we have to -- if 24 we have to break I mean it is -- you know, as long as 25 you people are not going to make this argument that Court Reporters Associates 1 we just didn't use all the time we had. I mean I 2 would like to be as reasonable as I can, and under 3 ordinary circumstances I try to always work things Page 91 debor.txt 4 out with counsel. So how long a break do you need? 5 we were probably going to be taking a break, I would 6 assume Mr. DeBor might -- might want a break at some 7 point, just -- you know, but how long -- do you need 8 to break right now? 9 MS. king: I just need to do it before - 10 before 1:00, probably before quarter till. 11 MS. HUART: Okay. Well, that's -- by my 12 watch I have got -- I have got 3:40 eastern time - 13 3:42 eastern time right now. Do we need to stop now 14 and break? 15 MS. KING: Since we have stopped the flow of 16 questioning we might as well just stop now if that's 17 okay with you. 18 MS. NICOL: We can --we can do it in a 19 short break, a 10 minute break, so we can get back 20 and complete the deposition. 21 MS. HUART: We can -- we can take a short 22 break for the purposes of accommodating the requests 23 of counsel for - 24 MS. KING: Bondex. 25 MS. HUART: Bondex. okay. 1 2 3 4 5 Court Reporters Associates MS. KING: Thank you, I appreciate that. MS. huart: okay. THE VIDEOGRAPHER: off the record 3:38 p.m. (A break was taken.) THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Back on the record 4:01 Page 92 99 6 p.m. debor.txt 7 Q. Mr. DeBor, I would like to hand you what's been 8 marked as Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5421, and if you would, 9 please, can you turn to the -- the third page of that 10 exhibit, and for the record these appear to be 11 computerized printouts -- pardon me, these for the 12 record appear to be a printout of a computerized data 13 with the names of various companies listed? 14 MS. KING: Excuse me, counsel, did you say 15 5241? 16 MS. huart: Yes. 17 MS. KING: Thank You. 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. Okay. You have had an opportunity to review 20 those? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. I don't believe these pages are numbered, so if I 23 could please just simply hand to you the -- it is a 24 difficult page to find because they are not numbered, 25 but there is a page in your set that looks like the Court Reporters Associates 100 1 page that I am handing you from 5241, and at the top 2 of that page is a line that reads year '66 and then 3 under ship name U.S. Gypsum. I am going to leave 4 that in front of you so you can find the page in your 5 set that matches that unless you would like for me to 6 find it for you. Do you have it, sir? 7 A. I believe I have it here, yes. Page 93 8 Q. Okay. debor.txt 9 MS. NICOL: This is, Farah, can you just 10 guide me in the attachment like how far down that 11 might be so I can locate it as well? 12 ms. huart: it appears to be roughly 13 halfway. 14 MS. NICOL: Okay. And it -- the first year 15 at the top is 1966 you said? 16 ms. HUART: Yes, it is -- there is a line 17 that says INVC num which I presume means invoice 18 number, I don't know. 19 MS. NICOL: Okay. 20 MS. HUART: Another column entitle ship 21 name, another column entitled ship date, ship STAT 22 and then QTOT, and then beneath that it says year 23 '66, and beneath that there is the number I believe 24 7-27, under the column ship name it says U.S. Gypsum 25 Company, the ship date is six six oh seven oh eight Court Reporters Associates 1 the ship STAT is TX Texas and the QTOT column 2 reflects 4,000. 3 Did I read that correctly? 4 A. Correct. 5 Q. okay. 6 ms. NICOL: okay, I think that I have 7 located it. 8 MS. HUART: Okay. 9 Q. Have you ever seen, sir, computerized printouts Page 94 101 debor.txt 10 either similar to or identical to the attachment to 11 5241 that I have shown you? 12 MS. NICOL: Overbroad. 13 A. Again, I would like to indicate first if I could 14 that your first two pages of this exhibit appear to 15 be unrelated to the following pages -16 Q. Mm-hmm. 17 A. -- at all, would you agree with that? 18 Q. Actually, no, I -- I don't -- I can't really - 19 well, I can't actually answer questions. 20 A. okay. Well, it -- 21 Q. in the context of a deposition. 22 A. It appears to me that it is unrelated. The first 23 page obviously continues to a second page which is 24 not here. Again, the final page is page 40 and page 25 one. I don't believe that this material is related Court Reporters Associates 1 directly as far as being page two through page 39 102 2 here. As far as this particular document - 3 Q. And the particular document, just for the record, 4 bears a sticker on the bottom that says Defendant's 5 Exhibit A, is that correct, on the first page of the 6 computerized printouts? 7 A. Correct. 8 Q. Okay. And I -- and I understand it that you are 9 not willing to or in your opinion you don't -- you 10 can't -- you are not expressing anopinion as to 11 whether this document is infact anattachment to Page 95 debor.txt 12 the -- to the two pages that are marked 5241; is that 13 correct? 14 A. Correct. 15 Q. Okay. Can you offer any testimony - 16 MS. NICOL: I think he was also -- I think 17 he was also stating that itis not acomplete 18 document as best as he can tell because the first 19 page is numbered one and the second page is numbered 20 40. 21 MS. HUART: I think his testimony speaks 22 for itself. 23 Q. with respect to -- so can you answer my questions 24 then with respect to the document that has the 25 sticker Defendant's Exhibit A? Court Reporters Associates 103 1 MS. NICOL: overbroad, lacks foundation, 2 calls for speculation, depends what your question is. 3 A. what is your question, please. 4 Q. what the question that is pending is have you 5 seen documents that are identical to orsimilar to 6 Exhibit A? 7 A. I have not seen an identicaldocument other than 8 in review of your exhibits within the last two days. 9 I did take note of this as I reviewed the documents. 10 Again, I have never seen for the metals business a 11 document like this and in form or fashion I believe 12 that we would categorize this as a distribution 13 document. Page 96 debor.txt 14 Q. As a -- is it your testimony that it is a 15 distribution document of the Union Carbide? 16 MS. NICOL: Misstates his testimony, 17 assumes facts not in evidence, calls for speculation, 18 his answer speaks for itself. 19 A. Again, based on you asked for similar documents. 20 Q. Mm-hmm. . 21 A. within union Carbide I have seen similar 22 documents that -- of a distribution nature. 23 Q. Okay. Those similar documents of a distribution 24 nature that you have seen, do -- do you know from 25 what database those documents were prepared? Court Reporters Associates 1 MS. NICOL: Vague. 104 2 A. For the chemicals and plastics division there was 3 a system called the shipments database, and as to the 4 exact name of the database itself I do not know. The 5 system was called the shipments database. 6 Q. Okay. Does that database exist today? 7 A. No, actually the database was -- or that system 8 was decommissioned in the late 1990s. 9 Q. what happened to the data that was in that 10 system? 11 A. Union Carbide went through a system of archiving 12 that material. The system itself was brought down, 13 but the data that existed within the system was moved 14 to a archiving format which I can't speak 15 specifically to; but that system is called ami, Page 97 debor.txt 16 A-M-l, Archiving Master index. 17 Q. Who is in charge of the Archiving Master index? 18 MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope of the 19 deposition. 20 A. I do not know. 21 Q. who would you go to to find out? 22 MS. NICOL: Same objection. 23 A. I would go to the IT or the information 24 technology group in South Charleston, west Virginia. 25 Q. Do you know who is in charge of that group? Court Reporters Associates 1 A. No, I do not at this juncture. 105 2 Q. in connection with that document, and you can 3 keep that one open where it is, I would like to show 4 you Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5245 and specifically turn 5 your attention to page 35 that reflects paragraph H 6 of a response to interrogatory No. 29. And just to 7 kind of speed this along paragraph H refers to a 8 computer database of sales and copies of invoices of 9 calidria sales. And just to speed this along I am 10 going to go ahead and read that into the record, 11 quote, union Carbide possesses copies of invoices of 12 calidria sales made by union Carbide to calidria 13 customers, Union Carbide also maintains a computer 14 database of such sales. Since Union Carbide sold its 15 calidria business in 1985 union Carbide at present 16 can make no representation as to the completeness of 17 its records. And then I guess it goes on to talk Page 98 debor.txt 18 about the records of sales. 19 My question to you, sir, is, is the computer 20 database referenced in that interrogatory' response in 21 5245 the computer database that you just gave 22 testimony on or would you -23 MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope. I'm sorry, 24 go ahead. 25 Q. Or do you -- court Reporters Associates 1 MS. NICOL: Are you done with your - 2 Q. Or -- or -- or do you understand that to be a 3 different database? 4 MS. NICOL: Beyond the scope of the 5 deposition, agreed upon deposition, callsfor 6 speculation, lacks foundation. 7 A. Again, I am unfamiliar with what is referenced in 8 this item as far as a computer database of such 9 sales, I am not sure what that is referring to. I am 10 familiar with this, the shipment database, I can't 11 say whether it is one and the same. 12 Q. Okay, lust for the record who verified the 13 response to 5245? And that would be on page two of 14 that document. 15 A. oh, lohn McDonald. 16 Q. Yes. Do you -- is Mr. McDonald employed with the 17 Union Carbide Company? 18 A. No, he is not. 19 Q. is he still alive? Page 99 106 debor.txt A. Yes, I believe he is. Q. do you know where he is located? A. Yes, he lives in Connecticut. Q. Danbury? A. I don't believe Danbury. Q. Do you know where in Connecticut? Court Reporters Associates 1 A. I don't know where his home address is. 2 Q. Do you know what city he lives in? 3 A. Sorry, I don't. 4 Q. Okay. Do you know who the records custodian is 5 for the sales records referred to in -- on page 35 of 6 Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5245? 7 MS. NICOL: Calls for speculation , lacks 8 foundation, beyond the scope. 9 A. Again what page was that, please? 10 Q. Page 35. 11 A. Again item eight refers to copies of invoices of 12 the calidria sales made by Union Carbide to calidria 13 customers, I know that they are maintained within the 14 asbestos repository. 15 Q. Okay. So that would be Miss Ruszczyk - - Rus -16 A. That's correct, Ruszczyk. 17 Q. Ruszczyk. 18 MS. NICOL: The same place where Pi aintiffs 19 have been invited to go view those documents. 20 Q. And this is the -- strike that. 21 Let me just leave these here, with respect to Page 100 debor.txt 22 Defendant's Exhibit A that had been attached to the 23 5241 document, sir, am I correct then that you cannot 24 offer any testimony concerning the fact that that is 25 or is not a record maintained in the ordinary course Court Reporters Associates 1 of business of union Carbide? 108 2 MS. nicol: Asked and answered. 3 A. Again, I think that I indicated that this 4 specific document I was unfamiliar with. 5 Q. Mm-hmm. 6 A. In form or fashion I haveseen other similar 7 documents. 8 Q. Mm-hmm. So with respect to -- so it is similar 9 to other documents that you have seen which in fact 10 are business records of Union Carbide? 11 A. Correct. 12 ms. nicol: Same objection. 13 Q. I would like to show you what's been marked as 14 Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5040 and ask you to look at that. 15 A. Yes. 16 Q. is that document familiar -- strike that. 17 Does that document appear to be a record kept in 18 the ordinary course of business of Union Carbide? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. I take it you have seen this document before 21 prior to this weekend? 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. Have you provided authentication testimony Page 101 debor.txt 24 concerning this document before? 25 MS. NICOL: Calls for a legal conclusion. Court Reporters Associates 1 Q. Have you provided testimony concerning this 109 2 document before? 3 A. I don't believe so. 4 Q. I would like to hand you what'sbeen marked 5 Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5502. 6 A. Yes. 7 Q. Can you provide testimony as to whether that is a 8 business record maintained in the ordinary course of 9 business of union carbide? 10 A. Yes, I believe that it is. 11 Q. Mr. DeBor, I apologize to you, I intended to ask 12 you a follow-up question concerningthose sales 13 records, and this is really specific to the new 14 interrogatory requests that we received at seven p.m. 15 last night, and which of course I -- I do not have in 16 front of me in their entirety and certainly have not 17 had an adequate opportunity to review. 18 I am going to ask you a question about them 19 while you are here because it is relevant to this 20 sales issues without -- certainly without waiving any 21 position that we have already taken that we have 22 really not had an adequate time to review these. 23 Can I just ask you did you participate at all in 24 the information that was reviewed in order to amend 25 the responses to discovery served last night? Page 102 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 110 1 MS. NICOL: I just want to reassert our 2 position that that's beyond the scope of the 3 deposition, but as I indicated previously I will let 4 you have leeway into asking him questions about the 5 amended responses. 6 A. I believe the answer to that is yes. 7 Q. Mm-hmm. And what -- what did you do in order - 8 what was your role in -- in participating in what 9 culminated in the amendment of these responses? 10 MS. NICOL: Vague. 11 A. What was my role? 12 Q. Mm-hmm. what did you do? How is that? 13 MS. NICOL: overbroad. 14 A. I reviewed documents that were produced from the 15 asbestos repository for my review based on learning 16 the sales to the five companies in question in this 17 case. 18 Q. who asked for the documents from the repository, 19 do you know? 20 MS. NICOL: Attorney/client work product, 21 privileged. 22 A. Again the documents were provided to me by 23 counsel. 24 Q. were they provided to you in response to your 25 specific request? Court Reporters Associates Page 103 debor.txt 1 MS. NICOL: Same objection. 111 2 A. A specific request, no. 3 Q. Were they provided to you inresponse to a 4 request -- 5 MS. NICOL: The same objection. 6 Q. -- from you? 7 A. Again to prepare for this deposition those 8 documents were provided by counsel. I spent a lot of 9 time thoroughly reviewing those documents and 10 analyzing those documents. 11 Q. And these are documents that -- these are 12 documents beyond those Plaintiffs' Union carbide 13 collection, correct? 14 A. Beyond your exhibits? 15 Q. Yes. 16 A. Yes, they are. 17 Q. okay. So I understand that you reviewed the 18 Plaintiffs' Union Carbide collection, Iunderstand 19 that there were documents that youreviewed that came 20 from the asbestos repository and you haven't -- 21 strike that. 22 And based on your review of those documents - 23 strike that. 24 You reviewed those documents and then verified 25 interrog -- amended interrogatory answers concerning Court Reporters Associates Page 104 debor.txt 1 your review; is that correct? 112 2 MS. NICOL: Misstates his testimony. 3 A. I did review the documents and I did verify the 4 amended response, that's correct. 5 Q. Did you play any role in drafting the language to 6 be used in the amended responses? 7 A. No, I did not. 8 Q. Do you know who -- strike that. 9 were the doc -- did you review any sales records 10 of union Carbide in connection with the review that 11 occurred this weekend? 12 A. Yes. Again, the -- I had no direct knowledge of 13 the business. My knowledge comes strictly from the 14 documents and, therefore, a review of the documents 15 was the only way that I could become educated to 16 respond to your questions. 17 Q. Do you know how -- strike that. 18 In response to -- and I don't know which - 19 which response this is because I don't have a full 20 set in front of me, again, I am not -- I am not 21 really prepared to -- to do a full-blown examination 22 concerning the differences between the two sets at 23 this point, but did you review a document that, 24 quote, indicated a sale of 42,000 pounds of asbestos 25 in June of 1968 to U.S. Gypsum, South Gate, Court Reporters Associates 1 California, facility? 2 A. I can't remember the exact figure - Page 105 113 debor.txt 3 Q. Mm-hmm. 4 A. -- as far as months; but, yes, I believe that is 5 the case. 6 Q. what was -- what document did -- or what type of 7 document were you looking at that indicated that 8 sal e? 9 A. The 1968 -10 Q. Mm-hmm. 11 A. -- sale? it was a sales analysis report. 12 Q. And who generated that? 13 A. That particular report was generated by the 14 chemicals division. 15 Q. was it generated at this point in time for 16 purposes of this litigation or - 17 A. Oh, no. 18 Q. -- is this something historical? 19 A. No, this is something historical, and actually 20 something that is -- has been under our custody for a 21 number of years. 22 ms. huart: oh. I am going to make a 23 request on the record for documents that -- on which 24 the amended interrogatory answers were based. 25 MS. NICOL: And I have the same response Court Reporters Associates 114 1 with regards to all of the other requests, that it is 2 beyond the scope of the deposition notice. Plaintiff 3 had an opportunity to request documents in the 4 deposition notice and in our agreement and we didn't Page 106 debor.txt 5 have any of those requests. 6 MS. HUART: I think that all the sales 7 records pertaining to sales to these particular 8 Defendants were definitely referenced, but we won't 9 take up any more time on the record. 10 ms. nicol: Actually the deposition notice 11 simply asks in terms of a production of documents for 12 the originals listed in Exhibit B which in my 13 confirming letter with Mr. Armitage we agreed did not 14 produce the originals, and then union Carbide's 15 documents in possession, custody -- the second group 16 of documents and the only other group of documents 17 Plaintiffs' requested in the deposition notice were 18 any and all documents in union Carbide's possession, 19 custody or control setting forth and/or referring to 20 union carbide's profits or financial conditions in 21 which it was also agreed was an issue that would 22 later be dealt with if in fact they there was a - 23 that need came at the end of trial in this matter. 24 So in fact Plaintiffs have not requested any 25 documents that could conceivably be responsive to all Court Reporters Associates 115 1 the requests that you have made during the course of 2 this deposition. 3 MS. HUART: I am not going to let my - 4 certainly wouldn't want to let my silence and lack of 5 point by point response be misconstrued as any 6 agreement that I might have with any position that Page 107 debor.txt 7 you have taken. I am just trying to move this 8 deposition along. 9 Q. With respect to sales of -- strike that. 10 Did you refer -- did you review any documents in 11 preparation for your -- for the amended responses and 12 in preparation for this deposition did you review any IB documents pertaining to sales of calidria fiber to 14 Kelly-Moore Company in the years prior to and 15 including 1968? 16 MS. NICOL: Just as long as we have a 17 continuing understanding orobjection to questions 18 beyond National Gypsum and United states Gypsum to 19 the extent that they go beyond the issues of the 20 summary judgment, but certainly as part of our 21 agreement we have allowed questions regarding the 22 other three manufacturers to be asked as well, but 23 we're not waiving our right based on the fact that 24 Plaintiffs have not properly amended to include those 25 claims against Unioncarbide inthis case. court Reporters Associates 116 1 MS. HUART: I think the agreement says what 2 it says. 3 Q. Mr. DeBor, can you answer my question? 4 A. Yes, I did. 5 Q. Do you recall what types ofdocuments you 6 reviewed pertaining to sales ofcalidria to Kelly7 Moore prior to and including 1968? 8 A. As a general term call reports, invoices, dust Page 108 debor.txt 9 counts and sales reports. 10 MS. huart: I would like to make a request 11 on the record that they be produced. 12 MS. NICOL: Respond the same as with the 13 others. 14 Q. Based on your review of those documents is -- is 15 it your understanding that union carbide sold 16 calidria fiber to Kelly-Moore prior to and during the 17 year 1968? 18 MS. NICOL: I want to be very clear what 19 entity are you asking about, Kelly-Moore Paint 20 Company, Inc.? 21 MS. huart: To either Kelly-Moore or the 22 Paco Textures section of Kelly-Moore. 23 MS. NICOL: I am going to object as being 24 speculative and - 25 MS. HUART: That's my -- Court Reporters Associates 117 1 MS. NICOL: -- calling for speculation and 2 lacking foundation and confusing in terms of relating 3 the two prior to a certain time period when they were 4 in fact separate entities. 5 MS. huart: Objection to - 6 MS. NICOL: So if you want to ask the 7 questions separately as to each entity you are more 8 than welcome to. 9 MS. huart: Objection. I am going to 10 object to the speaking nature of the objection that Page 109 debor.txt 11 provides testimony in the context of the objection. 12 Q. can you answer my question, Mr. DeBor? 13 A. Yes, in 1968 - 14 MS. NICOL: Same objection. 15 A. -- again I found references in documents -- in 16 sales documents that would indicate sales to Kelly17 Moore but on Paco Textures. 18 Q. Mm-hmm. Do you have any -- I understandthat you 19 are here to testify concerning matters within your 20 personal knowledge in the limited categories that 21 that is provided for in the --in the letter 22 agreement. Do you have personal knowledge 23 concerning -- concerning the existence of sales 24 records that show that calidria fiber was sold by 25 distributors to Kelly-Moore and/or Paco Textures? Court Reporters Associates 0 118 1 MS. NICOL: Just object to the extent that 2 you are asking for his personal knowledge. Obviously 3 he has no knowledge beyond the contents of the 4 records and what those records in fact say 5 themselves. 6 A. Again, to reiterate that, no, I have no personal 7 knowledge beyond the review of the documents 8 regarding this business or -- and based onmy review 9 of the documents for the time frame in this case so 10 no reference to distributor sales. 11 Q. Are you familiar with the name Harrisons and 12 Crossfield? Page 110 debor.txt 13 A. Yes. 14 Q. what is your understanding of Harrisons and 15 Crossfield? 16 A. Again, it is -- a review of the documents 17 indicate that they were a distributor for calidria. 18 Q. Do you know which companies purchased calidria 19 for use -- strikethat. 20 Do you know which joint compound manufacturing 21 companies purchased calidria from - 22 MS. KING: overbroad, ambiguous, lacks 23 foundation and calls for speculation, and this is 24 Lisa King. 25 MS. HUART: I have not finished my question Court Reporters Associates 1 so - 2 MS. KING: Pardon me. 3 MS. HUART: That's okay. lust give me a 4 chance to ask it and then I will let you jump in. 5 Q. Do you have any knowledge, whether it comes from 6 documents or otherwise, concerning the companies to 7 whom Harrisons and Crossfields sold calidria for use 8 in joint compound or tape joint products? 9 MS. KING: Same objection. 10 MS. NICOL: I will join in those 11 objections. Did the court reporter get those 12 objections down? 13 THE REPORTER: Yes, I did. 14 MS. NICOL: Thank you. Page 111 debor.txt 15 A. Again, based on my review of the records there 16 was absolutely no indication of sales by any 17 distributor to thefive companies referenced in your 18 notes. 19 Q. is your testimony-- strike that. 20 I would like to hand you what's been marked as 21 Plaintiff's Exhibit 5516. Have you had an -- have 22 you had an opportunity to review that? 23 A. Yes. 24 Q. Does that appear to you to be a record maintained 25 in the ordinary course of business of Union Carbide? Court Reporters Associates 1 A. Yes, it does. 2 Q. I would like to hand youwhat's been marked as 3 Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5254. 4 unfortunately I have got these documents in 5 boxes behind me and -- 6 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: I know. 7 MS. HUART: -- I am going to have to be 8 ambulatory to ask these questions. 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. Does that documentappear to be arecord 11 maintained in the ordinary course of business of 12 union Carbide? 13 MS. NICOL: Asked and answered. 14 MS. KING: Vague and ambiguous. 15 A. Yes. 16 Q. And by that document I am referring to 5254. Page 112 120 debor.txt 17 MS. NICOL:: Did you move off iof 5516? 18 MS. HUART:: Yes, I did. 19 MS. NICOL:: You are now on to 5214? 20 MS. HUART: No. The document was 5254 21 Just for the record Mr. DeBor has in front of hii 22 5516 and 5254, just so we're clear. 23 MS. NICOL:: Thank you. 24 Q. ,Are both of these documents in your opinion 25 in your testimony records maintained in the ordi Court Reporters Associates 1 course of business of union Carbide? 2 A. Yes, again I believe in form and fashion they 3 are. I just would like to make a note that Exhibit 4 5254 again the pages are not sequential although it 5 does appear that the subject matter does relate. 6 Q. with respect to 5254 when you say the pages are 7 not sequential is it your testimony here that the 8 document that is stapled to the top page is not the 9 attached -- excuse me is not the attachment 10 referenced in the memorandum? 11 A. Again without comparing this to the original it 12 does reference a sales performance for '72 to '74 13 which is the attachment here. As a matter of fact, 14 the attachment here indicates '72 to '75 not '72 to 15 '74, and the prospect list and comments on the 16 prospect list I don't believe is referenced in that 17 paper. 18 Q. would you need more time to look at the document Page 113 121 debor.txt or is that -- I don't want to rush you. A. I'm sorry, it does reference prospects in the body there. Q. Okay. Does that change your opinion as to whether that is a A. Again, I -Q. --a business record of union Carbide? Court Reporters Associates A. I can't attest as to its completeness without comparing it to the original, but it certainly in form or fashion I would agree that it is a union Carbide document -Q. Okay. A. -- maintained in the course of normal business. Q. Thank you. Let me take that back. And when you say -- the document that you are referring to by "it" is the 5254; is that correct? A. Correct. Q. okay. A. Again just note within the scope that it is '72 and '76, the dates on that -- on those documents. Q. For the record Plaintiff's 5254 is dated 1975 and -- pardon me, is dated May 22nd, 1975. I would like to hand you what's been marked as Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5648. For the -- for the record, Mr. DeBor, I notice that you are referring to the Exhibit B to the deposition notice. Does that assist you in identifying -- or maybe I should just ask you I Page 114 debor.txt 21 notice that when I ask you to look at a document and 22 I hand it to you the first thing that you look at is 23 the reference on Exhibit B. is there a reason for 24 that? 25 A. No. Again, as far as the index or what's here as Court Reporters Associates 1 far as what's here -- 123 2 Q. Mm-hmm. 3 A. -- I think it will be some help if there is any 4 discrepancies. 5 Q. Oh, I see, I understand. I mean I don't have a 6 problem with you - 7 MS. NICOL: lust to be clear here does your 8 copy of Exhibit B in fact have a page that has 9 Exhibit 5648 listed? 10 THE DEPONENT: NO. 11 MS. HUART: Well, Mr. - 12 MS. NICOL: Or exhibit - 13 MS. HUART: -- DeBor has my copy so - 14 MS. NICOL: Our Exhibit B ends with the 15 bottom of one page is uc 5582 and the next page jumps 16 to uc 5653. 17 MS. KING: And actually mine is different 18 than that, this is Lisa King, mine ends at 5641 and 19 starts at 5675. 20 MS. NICOL: To the extent that this is not 21 listed on Exhibit B we would obviously object to its 22 use. Page 115 debor.txt 23 MS. huart: well, if there was a document 24 jam when this was copied I mean I -- that I can't 25 speak to. I know that these documents were numbered Court Reporters Associates 1 sequentially and I know that this exhibit has been 124 2 attached to other documents. The Plaintiff -- the 3 witness has the document itself in front of him so - 4 MS. NICOL: That's fine, he can answer your 5 questions about it. I am just making an objection 6 that to the extent it is not on Exhibit B it goes 7 beyond the scope of category three. 8 MS. king: And Lisa King, counsel, if you 9 could please just for our reference give a title or 10 some sort of reference to what the document is since 11 it isn't listed on anything we have here and I don't 12 have anything to look at that would be helpful. 13 MS. HUART: I will do that. Bear with me. 14 MS. KING: Thank you. 15 MS. HUART: 5648 is a document dated 16 November 30, 1971, report of call at Glidden Durkee 17 Cleveland by l.L. Myers, B.L. Ingalls and G. 18 Blancard, purpose discuss toxicological aspects of 19 calidria asbestos products and their safe handling. 20 I will make sure that the -- whatever pages are 21 missing or were resulted from a document jam 22 certainly will be provided to -- to everyone. lust 23 so I understand, Ms. Nicol, is this attachment 24 Exhibit B is that the first and only time that you Page 116 debor.txt 25 have ever received this document? Do you not have Court Reporters Associates 1 any other copies? 125 2 MS. NICOL: Exhibit B? 3 MS. HUART: Yes. 4 MS. NICOL: Yes, I only -- Exhibit B was 5 produced to us in connection with an attachment to 6 the deposition notice, and actually I think there was 7 an additional copy placed -- well, I think, I am not 8 positive, an additional copy may have previously been 9 sent with the boxes, but I see here that other 10 counsel who did not get a copy from us but in fact 11 got it from Plaintiffs are similarly missing pages. 12 MS. HUART: Well, I am sure that is just an 13 administrative -- administrator error, we'll get it 14 corrected. Thank you for bringing it to my attention 15 all. 16 MS. KING: Thank you. 17 Q. Sir, does that appear to be a document maintained 18 in the ordinary course of business as a business 19 record of Union Carbide? 20 A. Yes, it does. 21 Q. Thank you. I would like to hand you what's been 22 marked Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5066, and if you will take 23 a moment to review that. 24 MS. KING: Ms. Huart, just to help you out 25 the exhibit list was produced from your office on Page 117 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 1 March 8th, 2002, to a number of different attorneys 126 2 by Jeffrey Simon, so that might help you to know to 3 whom to provide corrected copies. 4 MS. HUART: okay. Thank you. 5 A. Yes. 6 Q. Does that appear to be a business record of Union 7 Carbide? 8 A. Yes, it is. 9 Q. Maintained in the ordinary course of business? 10 A. Yes. Yes, ma'am. 11 Q. Thank you. I would like to hand you what's been marked Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5068 and ask you to review that. Thank you. Does that appear to be a record 14 kept in the ordinary course of business as a business 15 record of Union Carbide? 16 A. Yes, it does. 17 Q. I would like to show you Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5086 18 and ask you if that appears to be a business record 19 maintained in the ordinary course of business of 20 Union Carbide? 21 A. Yes, it does. 22 Q. Thank you. I would like to hand you Exhibit 5527 23 and ask you if that appears to be a business record 24 maintained in the ordinary course of business of 25 union Carbide? Court Reporters Associates Page 118 debor.txt 1 A. Yes, it does. 127 2 Q. And your testimony is with respect to 5527, 3 correct? 4 A. Correct. 5 Q. Okay. I would like to hand you what's been 6 marked Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5190. Does that appear to 7 be a business record of the union Carbide 8 Corporation? 9 A. Yes, it does. Again, I would just like to point 10 out that there is some handwriting and notation on 11 here which we certainlycan't attest to but. 12 Q. Mm-hmm. And I take it also that you would not be 13 able to identify whose handwriting that is on 5190; 14 is that correct? 15 A. As far as themarginalia. 16 Q. The marginalia at the top portion of the first 17 page of 5190? 18 A. No, I cannot, it appears different than the 19 signature which was Dr. Lincoln. 20 Q. I would like to hand you what's been marked 21 Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5179. 22 MS. NICOL: Is there a question pending? 23 MS. huart: Nope. No, the witness is 24 reviewing the document. 25 A. I am a little uncomfortable with the order on Court Reporters Associates Page 119 128 debor.txt this for as far as where your exhibit sticker is 2 placed. This item was last. Certainly this is a 3 Union Carbide document. 4 Q. Mm-hmm. 5 A. This particular item I don't recall. Again, 6 based on the date this is 1979, and I -- it appears 7 to be though without some further investigations a 8 slight reservation. 9 Q. Okay. Can you tell me whether -- what it is -- 10 sir, with respect to 5179, and as I understand it you 11 have a reservation about authenticating this as a 12 business record of Union carbide, can you -- can you 13 explain what it is about this document that causes 14 you to reserve judgment pending a further 15 investigation? A. Yeah. Again, it is totally unattributed, I saw no names, there is no letterhead at all whatsoever. 18 Certainly the sum and substance of the document 19 appears to be Union Carbide asbestos; but, again, on 20 a note of caution I just have a reservation about 21 that particular document. 22 Q. Did you have an opportunity to review I believe 23 the -- the document that's contained within 5179 that 24 is a memorandum dated May 10th, 1979, providing the 25 subject asbestos strategic planning? Court Reporters Associates 1 A. Yes, absolutely. 2 Q. okay. page 120 129 debor.txt A. It does seem related, and as I indicated the - that page is definitely. Again, I had some concern 5 that it was on the back of the document. 6 Q. Mm-hmm. What kind of investigation would you 7 need to undertake to satisfy yourself that 5179 is a 8 business record of union Carbide or not? 9 A. Again I would like to confirm it with the 10 material that's in the asbestos repository. 11 MS. HUART: Mm-hmm. okay. I would like to 12 make a request on the record that that be done. 13 MS. NICOL: Same response, plus I would add 14 to the record at this point we're 20 minutes away 15 from the facility there closing and it being 5:30 - 16 20 minutes away from 5:30 eastern time. I will note 17 for the record that of all the documents that you have asked about only one covers the time frame that is the scope of this deposition. So I don't know if 20 it is intentional or otherwise that you have not 21 asked about documents relevant to the time period in 22 the scope of the deposition, but to the extent it is 23 intentional I will reassert what I had said several 24 hours ago and what I had told Mr. waters and Mr. 25 Armitage last Tuesday about this deposition and that Court Reporters Associates 130 1 it will not go past today, so to the extent you are 2 not asking the questions that you need to ask for the 3 summaryjudgment I would suggest it behooves you to 4 do so. If you have asked all the questions that you Page 121 debor.txt 5 need to in that regard, then that's fine; but I just 6 once again reassert that it is at Plaintiffs' peril 7 if they try to slippery slope in terms of not asking 8 relevant questions, asking about documents from '79 9 and the 70s instead of anything else that they may 10 think is necessary in terms of opposing summary 11 judgment. 12 MS. HUART: with respect to the 13 availability of the facility we got good news during 14 one of the breaks and our court reporter very kindly 15 checked with the people downstairs and found out that 16 the facility is in fact open until 8:00, so I was 17 mistaken regarding the closing of the facility. So 18 we are -- you know, we certainly can stay here and I 19 am prepared to continue to stay here until the -- and 20 continue the deposition, if -- if we finish prior to 21 that time, then we finish, and if not then I guess 22 we -- and I don't want to get into another 15 minute 23 colloquy about what's going to happen then, so I just 24 wanted you to be aware that we are not being kicked 25 out at 5:30 as we initially suspected. Court Reporters Associates 1 MS. NICOL: Well, that's the first time 2 that I am hearing that, so thank you. 3 Q. I would like to hand you what's been marked 4 Plaintiff's 5192. 5 A. Yes, that does appear to be a Union Carbide 6 document. Page 122 131 debor.txt 7 Q. Okay. And by Union Carbide document is it your 8 testimony that it is in fact a record kept in the 9 ordinary course of business of Union Carbide? 10 A. Yes, I believe so. 11 Q. Thank you. I would like to hand you what's been 12 marked Plaintiff's 5650 and ask you if you can 13 authenticate that document as a business record of 14 Union carbide? 15 MS. KING: Counsel, could you just please 16 read the title of that document. We're back into the 17 place where we don't have the list. 18 the DEPONENT: This is a call report done 19 by Harrison on 12-31-71 to Glidden Durkee in Atlanta, 20 Georgia. 21 MS. KING: Thank you. 22 A. And, yes, that does appear to be a Union Carbide 23 document. 24 MS. HUART: For purposes of this deposition 25 can counsel agree that when the witness states on the Court Reporters Associates 1 record that this does in fact appear to be a Union 132 2 Carbide document we interpret that to mean it is in 3 fact an authenticated business record or would you 4 like me to ask the -- would you like me to ask the - 5 reask the question so that the business record 6 authentication language is in the transcript? 7 MR. GLASSER: I think what you are doing is 8 agreeable. Farah, do you have any problems with Page 123 9 that? debor.txt 10 MS. NICOL: Yeah, that's fine. That's 11 fine. 12 MS. HUART: I just want to make sure that 13 we don't get down the road or have another problem 14 and then we look at the transcript and people say 15 well that wasn't authenticated because he didn't 16 actually say it was authenticated, he said it was a 17 union Carbide document. So since that -- I think the 18 witness understands that's what he is here to do and 19 I think we all do and - 20 MS. NICOL: Yeah, I just want to be clear, 21 we mix up the term authentication and business 22 record. Clearly they are two separate things. So I 23 just -- I just want to be clear, those terms get 24 muddled up a little bit in thisdeposition. 25 MS. HUART: Okay. Court Reporters Associates D 133 1 MS. NICOL: Because I think he -- he has 2 clearly testified to the -- almost all the documents 3 that he can say they appear to be, based on his 4 experience and his knowledge of the repository, 5 documents maintained by Union Carbide in the normal 6 course of his business. 7 MS. HUART: And that they -- whether they 8 appear to be what they in fact are -- whether they 9 appear to be true and correct copies of documents at 10 Union Carbide, you know, as long as -- if, Mr. DeBor, Page 124 debor.txt if there is anything on the face of the document that causes you to dispute or have some question in your 13 mind as to whether it is what it purports to be, for 14 example a memorandum of union Carbide or a letter 15 from a union Carbide individual, I assume that you 16 will tell me that when you look at the document, 17 okay, can we have that understanding? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. Okay. So if you don't tell me that there is 20 something fishy about the document that makes you 21 think it is not what it purports to be you are going 22 to let me know? 23 A. I certainly will. 24 Q. Okay. I have lost my train of thought. Have I 25 handed you 5650 yet? I don't believe that I have. I Court Reporters Associates 134 1 did. Pardon me, I have lost my train. So that -- we 2 have established that one as a business record. 5659 3 Plaintiffs' Exhibit I am handing you, and for the 4 record this is a September 13th, 1971, report of call 5 at American Cyanamid. 6 A. Yes. Again, thatappears to be a calidria call 7 report. 8 Q. Thank you. And thatdoes -- as acalidria call 9 report that appears to be abusinessrecord of Union 10 Carbide, correct? 11 A. That's correct, yes. 12 Q. okay. I would like tohand you Plaintiffs' Page 125 debor.txt 13 Exhibit 5044, sir, thank you. 14 A. Sorry for the delay. 15 Q. That's okay. 16 A. That does appear to be a union carbide record 17 maintained in the normal course of business. 18 Q. Thank you. And that is Exhibit 5044. I would 19 like to hand you both 5056 and 5005 simultaneously 20 and ask you to look at those. 21 MS. NICOL: Is that 5005? 22 MR. GLASSER: Right now he is looking at 23 5056. 24 MS. NICOL: Right. 5005 was one of the 25 other documents pulled, though, correct? Court Reporters Associates 1 MR. GLASSER: Right. 135 2 MS. NICOL: If Plaintiffs' counsel could 3 please describe that to us. it doesn't appear to be 4 in our box of documents copied and given to us by 5 Pi aintiffs' counsel. 6 MS. HUART: Okay. I would, but right now 7 the witness has the document, as soon as he is done 8 reviewing it I will be happy to describe it to you. 9 MS. KING: okay. Thanks. 10 the VIDEOGRAPHER: This might be a good 11 time to change the tape, I am going to have to within 12 10 minutes. Do you want to go off the record now and 13 do it? 14 MS. HUART: sure. We're going off the Page 126 debor.txt 15 record to change the tape. 16 the videographer: off the record 17 approximately 5:22 p.m., end tape two. 18 (A break was taken.) 19 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: One moment, please. 20 Back on the record 5:48 p.m., start tape three. 21 Q. Did you need additional time to review? 22 A. No. Regarding Exhibit 5005 I believe that that 23 appears to be a Union Carbide document maintained in 24 the course of normal business. I do, however, have 25 some problems as far as the chronology and Court Reporters Associates 1 description on 5056, and I am sure this is actually 136 2 multiple documents. 3 Q. Mm-hmm. 4 A. The commonality between the documents is an old 5 Bates stamp 9744 through 9800, it seems to be the 6 commonality only. 9744 through 9782 does appear to 7 be a technical literature on new additives induced 8 toxitrophy provides SAG and viscosity control 9 authored by John Myers; however, when you get to 10 Bates stamp 9783 this appears to be a totally 11 unrelated document indicating status summary mid 12 1970s asbestos toxicology. 13 Q. As an unrelated document can you offer an opinion 14 as to whether it appears to be a business record of 15 Union carbide? 16 A. Again, as far as its sum total it is somewhat Page 127 debor.txt 17 difficult to do that, but I believe that it is. 18 Q. okay. So the - 19 A. Bates stamp -20 Q. I'm sorry, let me just -- let me just identify it 21 for the record. This would be the document entitled 22 Status Summary - Mid 1970 Asbestos Toxicology with 23 Calidria Asbestos union Carbide Corporation provided 24 on the front page, and the Bates numbers of this 25 document extend from 809783 through eight -- A, Court Reporters Associates 137 1 pardon me, the letter A09788, and for the record that 2 document has been testified to as a business record 3 of Union Carbide. 4 MS. NICOL: And you are referring to 5056, 5 counsel? 6 MS. HUART: These various documents 7 apparently comprise - 8 A. 5056. 9 MS. HUART: -- Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5056. 10 Thank you. 11 MS. NICOL: Thank you. There is some 12 confusion between that and 5005 so I appreciate it. 13 A. Again the items with the only differentiation of 14 the Bates stamp of 9789 through 9796 appears to be 15 reprints of articles that are certainly not union 16 Carbide produced documents, and actually a couple 17 pages from the Federal Registry, three pages from the 18 Federal Registry, and that's those items. Page 128 debor.txt 19 Q. And this is the document the Bates Nos. 09789 20 through 9796 my understanding is you are indicating 21 are not business records of union Carbide. Is that 22 your testimony or are you -- I am not sure I 23 understand what your testimony is with respect to 24 thi s. 25 A. Again, these are reprints of articles and other Court Reporters Associates 1 material that was not obviously produced by union 138 2 Carbide. 3 Q. Can you offer any testimony as to whether it was 4 kept or maintained in the ordinary course of business 5 to the extent that union Carbide did in fact keep 6 reprints of articles and various medical journal 7 articles and other technical journal articles? 8 MS. NICOL: calls for speculation. 9 A. Again, these particular articles do not ring a 10 bell with me, but Union Carbide certainly kept 11 articles, and there are a number of outside articles 12 within the asbestos repository. 13 Q. Mm-hmm. Does that Bates numbering system have 14 any significance for you? 15 A. No, it does not. 16 Q. Mm-hmm. 17 A. Bates No. 9797 and 8 is a union Carbide document. 18 Q. And that is the document, for the record, 19 entitled Asbestos Toxicology Report, it is dated May 20 the 8th, 1969, and is a two page document? Page 129 debor.txt 21 A. Correct. And though I am not personally familiar 22 with it the last two pages under this Exhibit 9799 23 and 9800 as far as the Bates number appears to be 24 asbestos press release done by J.M. Mathis, Inc., 25 (phonetically) with a bottom line Union Carbide Court Reporters Associates 1 Corporation and Chemicals, so yes that is a press 139 2 release that is ours. 3 Q. Okay. So that portion you can -- 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. -- testify to as being a business record. Thank 6 you. Okay. That I believe concludes thediscussion 7 of 5056. 8 A. Yes. 9 Q. Okay. I would like to hand you Plaintiffs' 10 Exhibit 5164. 11 A. Yes, that does appear to be a union Carbide 12 document. 13 Q. Thank you. Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5006? 14 A. Yes, that is also. 15 Q. Thank you. Appear to be a Union Carbide 16 document? 17 A. Union Carbide document. 18 Q. Okay. Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5116, appreciate it if 19 you could look at that. 20 MS. NICOL: Did you say 5156? 21 22 5 - _ MS. HUART: no, I'm sorry, I believe I said Page 130 debor.txt 23 THE DEPONENT: 116. 24 MS. HUART: 116, thank you 25 MS. NICOL: Thank you. Court Reporters Associates 1 A. This is a call report dated 2-7-75 by Harrison 140 2 Rhodes, the customer is Gypsum Dry wall Contractors 3 International in Washington DC, and in this case I am 4 not sure that they were in fact a customer. Yes, I 5 believe that is a Union Carbide document. 6 Q. Okay. I am handing you Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5117 7 which appears to be a duplicate copy of Plaintiff's 8 5116 with I guess some slight variation? 9 A. it appears that the difference is the placement 10 of a previous Plaintiffs' exhibit sticker. 11 Q. Mm-hmm. other than that you have no -- pardon 12 me, other than that your testimony is that this 13 similarly -- 5117 is similarly a business record of 14 Union Carbide? 15 A. Yes. 16 Q. Thank you. I have previously asked you to look 17 at Exhibit 5040 and I would like to hand you now 18 Exhibit 5041, which appears to be another copy of it 19 with some slight variation, and ask you if you can 20 likewise authenticate or testify with respect to the 21 business record nature of 5041, both of those? 22 MS. NICOL: vague and overbroad. 23 Q. Can you testify as to whether that is a business 24 record of union carbide? Page 131 debor.txt 25 A. Yes, I believe that it is. Court Reporters Associates 1 Q. Okay. Thank you. Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5395 is 141 2 the next exhibit. 3 A. Yes, I believe that to be a Union carbide 4 document. 5 Q. Thank you. I would like to hand you what's been 6 marked Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5391. 7 A. Yes, I am familiar with that document, that is a 8 Union Carbide document. 9 Q. okay, can I ask you, sir, to compare that to the 10 document that's attached to Defendant union Carbide's 11 Response To Plaintiffs' Requests For Admission and 12 ask you -- did you need something? 13 A. This back for me to compare it. 14 Q. Ask you to compare it to Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5391 15 which is the exhibit you just looked at and 16 identified as a business record of union Carbide? 17 A. we refer to this as the attachment? 18 Q. Yes, we -- we can refer to that as the attachment 19 to Defendant's Request For Admissions. 20 A. The attachment does appear to be the same basic 21 document as Exhibit 5391. There are some differences 22 in that there is a stamp indicating received April 23 8th, 1971, Building 701 library that is missing from 24 the other one, and there is some marginalia 25 highlighted and written dated apparently 1-28-84. Page 132 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 1 Q. For the record the marginalia is on the copy 142 2 that's attached to the discovery - 3 A. On the attachment, that's correct. 4 Q. -- request, correct? 5 A. The -- again, the Exhibit 5391 has a stamp 6 outdated, and the item that's attached again based on 7 my experience in the business appears to be a copy 8 done with a lower grade copier than this was copied 9 wi th. 10 Q. Okay. 11 A. And again this is a technical literature put out 12 by Union Carbide, the F number kind of indicates 13 that, and in form and fashion they are the same 14 document. 15 Q. Okay. Do you know whose handwriting is in the 16 marginalia on the top of that document -- the 17 brochure that is attached to the discovery responses? 18 A. No, I do not. 19 Q. Do you recognize those initials? 20 A. Could it be John Myers? That would be - 21 MS. NICOL: Calls for speculation. 22 A. Yeah, that would be a pure guess. 23 Q. Do those initials -- just from your reading do 24 that -- do those initials appear to be IBM, is that 25 what it looks like to you? Court Reporters Associates D Page 133 debor.txt 1 A. I am not sure that's the case. I think I would 143 2 go JG possibly, it is 3 something M. 3 Q. Are you familiar with Mr. Myers' handwriting? 4 A. No, I am not. 5 Q. okay. Do you know Mr. Myers? 6 A. Personally I do not. 7 Q. You have never met him? 8 A. I have never met him. 9 Q. Do you know who placed the -- well, strike that. 10 What does the reference on the left-hand margin 11 file K-l mean to you, if anything? And again I am 12 referring to the brochure that is attached to 13 Defendant's discovery responses which is essentially 14 the same as 5391 which is a business record according 15 to Mr. DeBor. 16 A. it would be speculation, but Kl was a unit or a 17 pod within corporate headquarters, and I can't 18 remember what organization was there. 19 Q. Okay. Are you familiar with any similar kinds of 20 calidria asbestos sales brochures for the standard 21 grade products 130 and 210 that are dated prior to 22 October 1968? 23 MS. NICOL: Could I have that question read 24 back, please. 25 (The reporter read back the requested matter.) 0 1 Court Reporters Associates MS. NICOL: Thank you. Page 134 144 debor.txt 2 A. No. Again, based on my review of the documents 3 and preparation for this deposition I found no 4 literature or marketingitems prior to that regarding 5 130 and 210. 6 Q. Is the document collection that you -- strike 7 that. 8 what document collection did you go to to 9 determine whether there were such pre October 1968 10 sales brochures? 11 A. Again, the documents that wereprovided me by 12 counsel from the asbestos repository included that 13 particular document. 14 Q. Well, okay, who reviewed the documents at the 15 asbestos repository out of which the document 16 attached to the discovery requests emerged? 17 MS. NICOL: Asked and answered. 18 A. Counsel. 19 Q. Is the document collection of marketing and 20 advertising materials for calidria at the asbestos 21 repository full and complete, and by that I mean 22 containing all of the advertising materials that 23 existed? 24 A. I could never characterize any collection as full 25 and complete. Again, discovery is ongoing, it is -- Court Reporters Associates 145 1 based on 20 years of review of documents I have every 2 confidence that it is an excellent collection. 3 Q. But you certainly can't testify under oath today Page 135 debor.txt 4 that it is a -- it is a complete collection with 5 respect to Union Carbide advertising and marketing 6 materials, correct? 7 MS. NICOL: Argumentative, misstates his 8 testimony. He is giving you a very clear answer in 9 that regard and to push it any further is being 10 argumentative and harassing. 11 A. Again the asbestos repository, based on the 12 previous collections and efforts to collect 13 documents, is as complete a collection as we have 14 access to. Should additional material be located it 15 will be included in the repository. 16 Q. Iwould like to hand you Plaintiffs' Exhibit 17 5393. 18 A. I am familiar with this document. I really 19 cannot recall whether all the pages are what was 20 attached in the original material from the 21 repository, but I certainly have a recollection of 22 seeing a similar -- similar document. 23 Q. Okay, is there some way that you could verify by 24 comparing this particular Exhibit 5393 with the 25 document that you have seen or documents that you Court Reporters Associates 1 have seen at the asbestos repository? 146 2 A. Yes, I believe we could do that. 3 MS. huart: okay. I am going to make a 4 request on the record that if there is something that 5 you would feel you would need to do in order to say Page 136 debor.txt 6 one way or the other whether this is a business 7 record of UnionCarbidethat youundertake to do so 8 prior to the - 9 MS. NICOL: I'm sorry, with all that 10 shuffling of paper I completely missed what you said. 11 Could the court reporter read that back, please. 12 MS. huart: I actually didn't finish my 13 sentence. 14 (The reporter read back the requested matter.) 15 MS. HUART: Prior to -- what I am 16 requesting is that you undertake to do so within some 17 reasonable time before the Plaintiffs' response to 18 the summary judgmentmotion is due, andcertainly 19 that request is as to any of the other requests that 20 I have made on the record for any kind of 21 verification that needs to happen we have a -- strike 22 that. That that request applies to those as well. 23 MS. NICOL: I don't know that you have 24 fully fleshed out with him if there wouldn't be 25 anything more that he would need. There is a limit court Reporters Associates 147 1 to what he knows because again he wasn't around here 2 at these times that you are seeking to find out 3 about, so the best that he can say is whether it 4 appears to him to have been maintained in the normal 5 course of business. 6 MS. HUART: Ms. Nicol, you are continuing 7 to -- Page 137 debor.txt 8 MS. nicol: You can't -- you can't -- 9 MS. huart: Your objections that are -- are 10 stating and circumscribing and talking about what 11 this witness knows and what he doesn't know I really 12 think we're getting -- you know, you are really kind 13 of getting over the line here in terms of what you 14 are permitted to do in the context of your objection. 15 Now - 16 MS. NICOL: I am responding to your request 17 on the record, and what I am saying is we're not 18 going to do anything of the kind. This is your 19 opportunity to ask him all of the questions you can 20 think of that relate to category three with regard to 21 these documents, and to the extent that you haven't 22 fleshed out all you need to flesh out, that's 23 Plaintiffs' problem, it is not our problem to go 24 beyond that. 25 He is the most knowledgeable on this category Court Reporters Associates 1 and he has been produced for that. To the extent 148 2 that he can answer the question you can clearly see 3 Mr. DeBor will make every effort to do that, so if 4 you have some question or some confusion or still 5 some open issue with regards to any of these 6 documents, I suggest you ask the question. 7 MS. HUART: Ms. Nicol, I am going to phrase 8 these questions. I am the person who is asking the 9 questions, and I am going to phrase these questions Page 138 debor.txt 10 in the way that I think is the most productive, and 11 when I need your input and advice and counsel I will 12 be sure to stop the deposition and ask you to -- to 13 assist me. I don't anticipate that happening, I 14 appreciate your offer; however, I really don't need 15 your assistance, and at this point I am making my 16 requests on the record. What you do in response to 17 my requestsis entirely up to you so - 18 MS. NICOL: well, that's my response. 19 MS. HUART: I am going to go ahead - 20 MS. NICOL: My response -- my response is 21 you need to ask the questions that go to this 22 category. He is here for the deposition to go 23 forward, he has been produced to the responsive 24 categories, you have your option to go forward, if 25 you don't ask the questions that get you to the right Court Reporters Associates 1 place you want to get at, all the reserving on the 149 2 record that you want to do about asking for 3 additional information is your own desire but it will 4 not go any farther than that. 5 MS. HUART: I am not reserving anything on 6 the record, what I am asking is I am asking for this 7 witness to do -- and when we do resume this 8 deposition I frankly think it ought to be resumed at 9 the asbestos repository or at Morrisville or either 10 one of those places or any place where these 11 documents exist so that we can say you know what, Mr. Page 139 debor.txt 12 DeBor, I understand you feel you need to compare this 13 to another document, well by golly let's just go down 14 the hall and do that, and let's -- let's have this 15 deposition at a place where this witness has access 16 to the documents that will enable him to authenticate 17 them or not, I am happy to. If you want to get 18 quote -- 19 MS. NICOL: I think - 20 MS. HUART: if you would like to get, 21 quote, in your words, to that place, closed quote, 22 that is the place I would like to get to. Now, I 23 would like to continue to ask my questions of this 24 witness, and I will continue to make whatever 25 requests on the record that I feel are appropriate, Court Reporters Associates a 1 and I will continue to ask thesequestions in the 150 2 format that I think is appropriate, youare -- you 3 may object - 4 MS. NICOL: I suggest you listen to Mr. 5 DeBor's answer because what he has told you when he 6 has answered these questions is that they appear to 7 look like Union Carbide documents or they don't 8 appear to look like Union Carbide documents. That's 9 simply all he is obligated to tell you, and if you 10 ask another question that asks him something else he 11 will answer that as well. 12 MS. HUART: He has testified as to what he 13 would need to do to satisfy himself that these are or Page 140 debor.txt 14 are not business records, and I am asking that he do 15 that. That is what I am asking. 16 MS. NICOL: Oh, no, no, no, don't 17 mi sunderstand. 18 MS. huart: That's what I am 19 MS. NICOL: Don't misunderstand. 20 MS. HUART: I understand. 21 MS. NICOL: comparing the two documents did 22 not go to business records, comparing the two 23 documents went to true and correct copies, comparing 24 the two documents would not change anything about a 25 business record and whether he believes they appear Court Reporters Associates 151 1 to be maintained in the normal course of business, so 2 you should be very clear in understanding the 3 distinction. You have confused them during the 4 course ofthis deposition, but they aretwodifferent 5 things. 6 MS. HUART: I am perfectly aware of what 7 the difference is between a business record and 8 authentication, and this witness has told me that he 9 will be sure to alert me as to any document that he 10 feels is not what it purports to be. Now, he hasn't 11 done that except on very limited occasions. And I 12 think Mr. DeBor understands what he is here to do, 13 and I understand what he is here to do, and I don't 14 think there is anyquestion in anybody's mind what he 15 is doing. Page 141 debor.txt 16 Now, I would like to continue. I would like to 17 proceed. It is getting late. If you would like to 18 continue to -- to have a speech I suggest you might 19 want to wait until we're done and then you can put 20 whatever you want on the record after we can move - 21 move forward. 22 MS. NICOL: Responding just to your 23 question and proposal on the record I think I am 24 entitled to do that, so if you don't have anything 25 more to put on the record then I don't have anything Court Reporters Associates 1 more to say about it. 152 2 MS. HUART: Ms. Nicol, it is not a 3 proposal, it is a request. I am making a request. 4 This is discovery, we're in a discovery deposition, I 5 am making a request. Now, you can - 6 MS. NICOL: You have my response. 7 MS. HUART: -- do whatever you would like 8 to do with my request, I invite you to do so. 9 ms. NICOL: You have my response. 10 MS. HUART: And I will let you know one 11 more time that this poor court reporter cannot take 12 the both of us talking at one time, so if you'd do me 13 the courtesy of waiting until I finish before you 14 start speaking I think this court reporter would 15 appreciate that courtesy. I know I would. 16 Q. I would like to hand you Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5270 17 which is a reprint from the Journal of Paint Page 142 debor.txt 18 Technology of an article written by Mr. John Myers, 19 and the date of that is December 1975 issue. 20 A. And this appears to be a technical article 21 written by John Myers during his course of employment 22 at -- while he was employed at Union Carbide, excuse 23 me. In the purest sense of the word because this is 24 reprinted from a publication I can't characterize 25 this as a Union carbide document, per se. This court Reporters Associates 1 document is in the asbestos repository and - 153 2 Q. And so you recognize it as being a document 3 maintained in the - 4 A. Yes, I do. 5 Q. -- in the course of business of - 6 A. Yes, I do. 7 Q. -- the corporate -- thank you. with respect to 8 this document, sir, I would like you to just turn 9 your attention to the right-hand margin on the first 10 page, and it appears that there is -- there were some 11 numbers that were cut off. Do you see that in the 12 lower right-hand corner? 13 A. I see it. 14 Q. okay. 15 A. I can't say what that is. 16 Q. Okay. You don't recognize that as being any kind 17 of Bates numbering system of Union Carbide or perhaps 18 a - - a frame on a microfilm or microfiche? 19 A. No, I can't say what that is. Page 143 debor.txt 20 Q. Okay. Thank you. Have you seen those kinds of 21 identifying marks in other Union Carbide documents? 22 MS. nicol: vague. 23 A. Again, I can't make out what this is at all, it 24 is just kind of cut off, so I really can't say if I 25 have seen that. Court Reporters Associates 154 1 Q. Thank you. I would like to hand you what's been 2 marked as 5237. 3 MS. NICOL: I am going to lodge again my 4 objection that this is an attorney/client work 5 product privilege document, we're not waiving that 6 privilege. 7 MS. huart: Okay. As you know our position 8 is it is a little late, it has already been waived. 9 A. I have seen that document in the review of your 10 exhibits in the last couple of days, I am not 11 familiar with that document, in the strict sense it 12 does appear to be correspondence to Allen Gerson 13 G-e-r-S-O-n of Kelley, Drye and warren. 14 Q. And for the record Kelley, Drye and warren is 15 counsel for Union Carbide to your knowledge? 16 A. Yes, it is. 17 Q. Okay. And do you know Mr. Gerson? 18 A. Yes, I do. 19 Q. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Do you know who Terry 20 McGeever is? 21 A. I know he is an attorney, beyond that I don't Page 144 debor.txt 22 know any specifics. 23 Q. I apologize, I didn't mean to cut you off. is 24 Mr. McGeever to your knowledge an attorney 25 representing Union carbide? Court Reporters Associates 1 A. I can't recall. 155 2 Q. Okay. I would like to hand you Exhibit 5504, 3 please, and ask you to look at that. 4 MS. NICOL: I'm sorry, counsel, we couldn't 5 hear you over the - 6 MS. HUART: sorry, 5504. 7 MR. GLASSER: Sorry, my fault, I knocked 8 over a cup. 9 MS. NICOL: Thank you. 10 MS. KING: You are in trouble now. 11 MR. GLASSER: Yeah. It was empty thank 12 goodness. 13 A. Again, this is a delivery and call report dated 14 10-23-75 by El Kleber k-l-e-B-e-r to General Electric 15 in Louisville, Kentucky. 16 Q. Does that appear to be a business record of union 17 carbide? 18 A. Yes, it does. 19 Q. Does it appear to be what it purports to be which 20 is a call report? 21 A. Yes, I believe so. 22 Q. You have seen many such call reports I would 23 assume in your career? Page 145 . r debor.txt 24 A. Have I seen many call reports? Yes, I have. 25 Q. I would like to hand you Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5058 Court Reporters Associates 1 which is another version of the -- another document 156 2 entitled asbestos toxicology report. 3 A.Although the copy is somewhat poor on this one, 4 this is a union Carbide document, we have seen that 5 before. 6 Q. Okay. I would like to hand you 5061, and while 7 that is -- while that particular exhibit number is on 8 the top page you may want to review the various pages 9 that comprise 5061 and tell me if perhaps there is - 10 whether you can discuss the business record nature of 11 this as one singular document or as individual 12 documents? 13 A. Okay, could you ask the question again, please. 14 Q. Sure. Can you provide testimony concerning 15 whether 5061 is a business record of union Carbide as 16 a single document or do you need to discuss that 17 document in its various component parts? I will be 18 happy to take your testimony any way you would like 19 to provide it. 20 A. Okay. I believe that it is three separate 21 documents. I am familiar with the first one, the 22 letter from Dr. Dernehl on March 21st, 1970. 23 Q. For the record that is the one that bears the 24 Bates number letter A03158. 25 A. I have seen, I am not sure where, the letter from Page 146 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 1 Union Carbide Belgium offered by Thomas 3. Hall. 157 2 Again, that appears to be a business record though 3 unrelated to the Dernehl document directly. 4 Q. For the record that would be the document Bates 5 numbered letter A03160 and 3161. 6 A. And it appears that the third or final item which 7 is correspondence to Peter Cheston C-H-E-S-T-O-N 8 dated February 8th, 1966. I cannot interpret the 9 signature. It is on Mining and Metals Division 270 10 Park Avenue letterhead. I am familiar with a couple 11 of the names that are copied so I believe that is a 12 Union carbide document. 13 Q. Okay. 14 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Excuse me, Mr. DeBor, 15 your mike seems to have gotten a little -- 16 Q. I take it then that the -- all of the pages that 17 comprise 5061 have been stated by you to be business 18 records of Union Carbide? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. And that they are what they purport to be, 21 letters? 22 A. Again the documents speak for themselves. 23 Q. Thank you. 24 MS. nicol: Beyond the scope of his 25 testimony. Page 147 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 0 1 Q. I would like to hand you Plaintiffs' Exhibit 2 5393. Strike that, we have already done this one. 3 If I could get everybody's indulgence one moment 4 I believe that I have already had you look at 5373. 5 (Discussion off the record.) 6 Q. 5393, sir, if I have shown this to you before, I 7 apologize, I am not trying to extend this deposition, 8 but - 9 MR. glasser: Could we have a short break? 10 MS. HUART: Certainly, but before we do let 11 me just let the court reporter know if I misspoke I 12 intended to say 5393. 13 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: off the record 14 approximately 6:33 p.m. One moment, wait a minute. 15 (A break was taken.) 16 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Back on the record 6:34. 17 Q. I would like to hand you Plaintiffs' Exhibit 18 5340. I realize that that's not a document that was 19 generated by the union Carbide Corporation but am 20 asking whether you know this document to be a 21 document that was maintained in the ordinary course 22 of business of union Carbide? 23 A. NO, I do not. 24 Q. Okay. Do you recognize this document? 25 A. NO, I do not. Court Reporters Associates Page 148 debor.txt 159 1 Q. Okay. Do the -- either the Bates numbers or the 2 letter designations beneath the Bates numbers have 3 any significance for you? And by that I mean the 4 letter designations HCL or 019089, that sequence of 5 numbers? 6 A. No. I have seen an awful lot of Bates numbers in 7 my day and I can't say that it rings a bell at all, 8 I'm sorry. 9 Q. with respect to documents -- or let me just ask 10 you specifically with respect to 5340 I believe as 11 you have testified there are areas of Union 12 Carbide -- and correct me if I am wrong, I believe 13 you said the asbestosrepository - 14 A. Yes. 15 Q. -- where reprints and articles may be -- may be 16 kept and maintained at this point; is that correct? 17 A. That's correct. 18 Q. Okay. If you wanted to find out whether or not 19 this particular document 5340 was among those 20 reprints and articles maintainedat theasbestos 21 repository, how could you goabout doing that? 22 A. Again, as I have indicated before, depending on 23 the type of document that can be a very laborious 24 process. I am familiar with a number of cartons of 25 this type of document that would have to be searched. Court Reporters Associates 160 1 And incidentally it did occur to me when you asked me Page 149 debor.txt 2 about the HCL that it could be Hilton Lewinsohn's 3 initials, I am not sure what his middle initial is. 4 MS. HUART: Okay. Well, I am making a 5 request on the record that we determine whether 5340 6 is among the documents that are maintained at Union 7 Carbide. 8 MS. NICOL: And I have the same response. 9 The witness says -- if he can't say it is familiar to 10 him, and that's what he is called here to do, that's 11 what he is responsive to in the category, and he has 12 been asked a question, and he has been given -- he 13 has given the answer, so you have the same response 14 we went through about 20 minutes ago in that regards. 15 Q. If we were sitting, Mr. DeBor, right now at -- at 16 the office on Park Avenue is that where you would 17 have to look to be able to determine whether or not 18 that document is in the asbestos repository? 19 MS. NICOL: That's not the question that's 20 the subject of the deposition notice. It is whether 21 it is authentic and whether it is maintained in the 22 normal course of business, not whether it is in the 23 asbestos repository. I object to the question as 24 being beyond the scope of the deposition. 25 MS. HUART: Well, I mean I object again to Court Reporters Associates 1 the speaking objection and particularly since you 2 have completely mischaracterized your own witness's 3 prior testimony because he has told me that this is Page 150 161 debor.txt exactly how those documents get to the asbestos 5 repository, and in fact he has coordinated the effort 6 to gather them up and send them there. So this 7 witness has -- is on the record as testifying where 8 those documents came from, and they did come from the 9 corporate -- various corporate offices of union 10 Carbide. 11 Q. So, Mr. DeBor, if we were sitting on Park -- in 12 the office on Park Avenue right now is that where you 13 would be able to at least look and determine whether 14 or not this document is among the business records 15 maintained by union Carbide? 16 MS. NICOL: Same objection, that's beyond 17 the scope of deposition category three as currently 18 phrased. A. Yes. Q. Thank you. well, hopefully, sir, when we resume 21 your deposition we might have the opportunity to do 22 that. I am going to hand you Exhibit 5039 which I 23 believe is another version of 5393, and if you would 24 like I can hand you back 5393 so you can compare 25 them. Court Reporters Associates 1 A. No, they are not identical. 162 2 Q. You can go ahead and explain that. I believe -- 3 is that document 5039 lacking pages that are in the 4 5393 document? 5 A. Yes. Page 151 debor.txt 6 Q. Okay. Can you express any opinion concerning 7 whether that document in that --in the format that 8 it is in in 5039 is a business record of Union 9 Carbide? 10 A. Again, I think we went over this before. 11 Q. Mm-hmm. 12 A. A couple of reprints. 13 Q. Mm-hmm. 14 A. The last two pages though unsigned is a document 15 of the union Carbide. I think this is the fifth time 16 we have seen this document. 17 Q. Mm-hmm. 18 A. And the front page the memorandum is clearly a 19 Union Carbide document. 20 Q. Okay. Thank you. I would like to hand you 5036. 21 A. Yes, that is a Union Carbide document. 22 Q. Okay. That is -- I'm sorry, I don't know if your 23 testimony was recorded. That is this is a business 24 record of union carbide? 25 A. Yes. Court Reporters Associates 1 Q. Thank you. I would like to hand you 5037. 2 A. Am I getting tired or have we seen all these 3 before? 4 Q. No, that's -- there are duplications. I have to 5 apologize, there is -- some records appear under more 6 than one exhibit number and some of them are slightly 7 different than others. I am sorry, I need to ask you Page 152 debor.txt 8 to authenticate them and review them and testify 9 concerning the business record nature of them in 10 their various iterations. 11 A. Again these appear to be all union Carbide 12 business documents with the proviso that there are 13 some reprints of public articles. 14 Q. I would like to hand you Exhibit No. 5017. 15 A. Again, the first page of Exhibit 5017 has 16 extensive writing marginalia which is unattributed, 17 the letterhead Calidria Asbestos Union Carbide. The 18 basic document certainly is a Union Carbide document. 19 The attachment appears to be again a Federal Registry 20 or some sort of government publication, and as far as 21 the attachment to the original I can't say whether 22 that's connected or not. 23 Q. Okay. Sir, can you identify the handwriting 24 that's in the marginalia on 5017? 25 A. No, I cannot. It is -- I was trying to find the Court Reporters Associates a 1 date or time frame again, it appears to be a 2 relatively old document as far as certainly 17 years 3 old plus, and, no, that's -- I have no knowledge of 4 that handwriting at all. 5 Q. Okay. I would like to hand you 5012, which is a 6 different version of the Asbestos Toxicology Report 7 and just ask you if you can identify that document? 8 A. Again, it does appear to be a slightly longer 9 version again without comparing it word -- Page 153 164 10 Q. Mm-hmm. debor.txt 11 A. -- for wordwith the previousversion; but, 12 again, based on the Industrial Medicine and 13 Toxicology Department union Carbide tag line on the 14 final page it appears to be consistent with being a 15 Union Carbide document. 16 Q. And whosename is at the bottom ofthis document? 17 is there a -- strike that. 18 This document is simply listed as being -- the 19 tag line being the Industrial Medicine and Toxicology 20 Department of union carbide without reference to a 21 specific individual, correct? 22 A. Correct. 23 Q. And for the record this is a four page or three 24 and 1/3 page version of the asbestos toxicology 25 report. I would like to hand you what's been marked Court Reporters Associates 1 as Plaintiff's 5407. 165 2 A. Yes, that does appear to be a unionCarbide 3 document. 4 Q. And the format of a --pardon me, this appears to 5 be a business record of union carbide? 6 A. Yes. 7 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: off the record at 8 approximately 6:52 p.m. 9 (A break was taken due to a lost connection.) 10 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Back on the record 7:11 11 p.m. Page 154 debor.txt 12 MR. GLASSER: Okay. Dust want to put on 13 the record that Greg Bevel of Bailey Crowe has been 14 dropped off the call either -- I guess there was a 15 disconnect, we attempted to make a call to his 16 office and we are -- we were unable toreach him. 17 MS. NICOL: This is Farah. The only thing 18 else I would add is we're unclear, he may have 19 voluntarily dropped off the call sometime in the last 20 several hours, we just don't know if he was on at 21 the time we got disconnected or not. 22 MR. GLASSER: Yeah. Okay. 23 MS. HUART: Okay. 24 Q. Mr. DeBor, I would like to hand you Plaintiffs' 25 Exhibit 5049. Court Reporters Associates 1 A. Yes, I am familiar with that document, and that 2 is a Union Carbide document. 3 Q. Thank you. Okay. I would like to hand you 4 Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5169. 5 A. Yes, that document is also a Union carbide 6 document and I am familiar with that document. 7 Q. Okay. I would like to hand you 5500. 8 A. Again, this is a call report dated 11-6-74 by E3 9 Kleber, and the customer is U.S. Gypsum in South 10 Gate, California, as I indicated dated '74. 11 MS. NICOL: I'm sorry, what number is that 12 again, please. 13 MS. HUART: 5500. Page 155 166 debor.txt 14 MS. NICOL: Oh, five five. 15 Q. Does this -- I think you indicated this appears 16 to be a report of call. Is this a business record of 17 Union Carbide? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. Thank you. 5327, can you tell me if thisis a 20 business record of Union carbide? And unless you 21 tell me otherwise I will assume it is what it appears 22 to be. 23 A. Again, this is a partial document, just one page, 24 it has continued at the bottom, it is dated 1976 and 25 references U.S. Gypsum, but a partial document, and Court Reporters Associates 1 that one page is a union carbide document. 167 2 MS. NICOL: lust for clarification of the 3 record I think part of your question also told him 4 that you would assume unless he told you otherwise 5 that the document is what it says, and just to repeat 6 what we have said all along he can't obviously 7 testify as to the accuracy or veracity of the 8 contents of any of these documents because he has no 9 personal knowledge. He can certainly tell you, as he 10 has all along, whether or not they are records 11 maintained in union carbide's normal course of 12 business. 13 Q. Well, where would you go to find the remainder of 14 this document that appears to be missing, and by this 15 document I am referring, sorry, to 5327? Page 156 debor.txt 16 MS. NICOL: Calls for speculation because 17 this document was produced by Plaintiffs. 18 A. Let me see the document again, please. Again, I 19 have no direct recollection of this document; 20 therefore, I would go to the asbestos repository. 21 MS. HUART: okay. I would like to make a 22 request on the record that a full and complete copy 23 of 5327 be produced. 24 Q. with respect to 5497 can you tell me whether this 25 is a report of call -- excuse me, whether it appears Court Reporters Associates o 1 to be a report of call and whether it is a business 168 2 record of Union Carbide? 3 A. Yes, again, this is a calidria report of call 4 dated 4-17-74, and it is TP Norris and 3. Rittenberg, 5 R-i-t-t-e-n-b-e-R-G, the customer is u.S. Gypsum in 6 South Gate, California, and again I have seen many 7 documents similar to this. 8 Q. And you have seen the similar documents in the 9 business records of union Carbide; is that correct? 10 MS. NICOL: vague and ambiguous, overbroad. 11 Q. where have you seen these similar documents, sir? 12 A. Again, as I indicated earlier - 13 MS. NICOL: vague. 14 A. I'm sorry. As I indicated earlier I was provided 15 numerous copies of sales material regarding sales to 16 the five companies at issue here. That did include 17 material that was beyond the scope, and I saw many, Page 157 debor.txt 18 many call reports just in the review in the last week 19 specifically. I have seen many of course in the 20 course of my 26 years with Union Carbide. 21 Q. I would like to hand you what's been marked 5620. 22 A. Again, this appears to be a call report dated 23 March 3rd, the call -- I'm sorry, the call was on 24 March 3rd, 1977, the date of the report is March 7th, 25 1977, it is authored by -- presumably authored by WD Court Reporters Associates 169 1 Massey, and it is a call on customer National Gypsum 2 in Buffalo, New York, and it does appear to be a 3 union carbide document. 4 MS. NICOL: I am not sure if we gave the 5 date, the date of the report is March 7, 1977. 6 THE DEPONENT: The date of the report March 7 7, 1977, correct. 8 Q. I would like to hand you 5515. 9 MS. NICOL: I'm sorry, we can't hear you, 10 counsel, could you please speak up. 11 MS. huart: I'm sorry, yes, my voice is 12 starting to go. 5515. 13 MS. KING: Thank you. 14 A. Again, this is a call -- again acall report 15 dated 4-28-75 authored by HarrisonRhodes, the 16 customer is National Gypsum, and this is a union 17 Carbide document. 18 Q. Thank you. 5514? 19 A. Again a call report by Harrison Rhodes dated Page 158 debor.txt 20 4- 16-75 to National Gypsum, Buffalo, New York. 21 Q- is that a union carbide business record, too? 22 A. Yes, it is. 23 Q- Okay. How about 5513? 24 A. Again a report of call dated -- actually the date 25 i s difficult to read, 7-9-76 as a guess, it is a Court Reporters Associates 1 call to National Gypsum company in Westwego, 2 Louisiana. That does appear to bea Union carbide 3 document. 4 Q. I would like to hand you 5253. 5 A. Yes, this is a relatively thick exhibit, and it 6 does appear to be a union carbide document. 7 Q- I would like to hand you 5102. 8 A. This does appear to be a Union Carbide document 9 Q. Thank you. I would like to hand you 5271. 10 A. Yes, this does appear to be a union Carbide 11 document. 12 Q. 5272, thank you. 13 A. Yes, that does appear to be a union carbide 14 document. 15 Q. 5097? 16 A. As does this document. 17 Q. Thank you. 5501? 18 A. Yes, this document is -- appears to be a Union 19 carbide document. 20 Q. 5392? 21 A. Yeah, and this document is unattributed in any Page 159 170 debor.txt 22 way as far as author and date though the title was 23 1977 Customer Application List. Certainly the 24 products referenced on the left-hand side are union 25 Carbide products or designated as Union Carbide Court Reporters Associates o 171 1 products, and again without greater specificity I am 2 a little reluctant to indicate that that is a union 3 Carbide document. 4 Q. would sales records such as you have before you 5 in 5302 be retained by Union Carbide at the asbestos 6 repository or would they be somewhere else? 7 ms. nicol: Calls for speculation. 8 MS. KING: Overbroad. 9 A. Again, if this is a union Carbide document I 10 would strongly suspect that that would be in the 11 repository in New York. 12 Q. Do you recall seeing customer application lists 13 for any years other than 1977 in the documents that 14 you reviewed at union Carbide? 15 A. what did you mean by customer applications lists? 16 Q. well, do you recall seeing documents similar to 17 5392 similar in format or similar in content? 18 MS. NICOL: Vague, overbroad. 19 A. i can't say as far as format. Yes, I have 20 certainly seen documents that indicate customers and 21 the type of application that they would be 22 purchasing. 23 ms. huart: And do those documents -- strike Page 160 debor.txt 24 that. I would like to make a request on the record 25 that those be produced. I would like -- Court Reporters Associates 1 MS. NICOL: same response. 172 2 Q. I would like you to take a look at 5503, please. 3 And can you tell me whether that is a two page 4 version of the earlier document that had continued on 5 the bottom where you -- pardon me, where your 6 testimony was that it was incomplete, is that then a 7 complete version of - 8 A. Yes, I believe that it is. 9 Q. -- the memo which is -- I don't recall. 10 MR. GLASSER: 5327. 11 Q. 5327. So 5503 is a complete version of 5327. 12 Can you -- can you testify as to whether 5503 is a 13 business record? 14 A. Yes, I believe that it is. 15 Q. Thank you. I would like to hand you Plaintiff's 16 5495. I hope I am not handing you that again. Have 17 you seen that one yet? I have got my piles mixed up, 18 I don't - 19 A. I don't believe so. 20 Q. Okay. 21 A. Again this is a call report dated 9-7-71 by TP 22 Norris to United States Gypsum, and, yes, I believe 23 that it is a union Carbide document. 24 Q. I would like to also hand you Plaintiff's 5430. 25 A. Again, this appears to be a union Carbide Page 161 debor.txt Court Reporters Associates 1 document. 173 2 Q. Thank you. I would like to hand you Plaintiffs' 3 Exhibit 5452. 4 A. Yes, this appears to be a Union Carbide document. 5 Q. In that connection can you --is there any way 6 that you can identify where these airborne dust 7 counts were performed since this document appears to 8 be redacted with respect to the location where those 9 dust counts were performed? 10 First of all, sir, can you -- do you agree with 11 me that the name of the company has been redacted out 12 in both the first and the second pages? 13 MS. NICOL: The document speaks for itself, 14 calls for speculation. 15 A. And that actually I am going to say no I can't 16 tell that it is redacted here, and again the document 17 is what the document is. 18 MS. HUART: okay. I would like to make a 19 request on the record for a complete unredacted copy 20 of 5452. 21 MS. NICOL: same response, especially since 22 this is Plaintiffs' document. I also want to refer 23 you again to the letter agreement at the end of 24 paragraph one, last sentence, Plaintiff understands 25 Mr. DeBor will not have the original documents Court Reporters Associates Page 162 debor.txt D 1 referred to in Exhibit B of the deposition notice. 174 2 Q. I would like to hand you Plaintiff's 5349 -- 3 strike that. 4 well, let me go ahead and do it. Let me show 5 you Plaintiff's 5349, and can you tell me whether 6 this is a document that is a duplicate of another 7 exhibit number that you have already looked at today? 8 if not you can just go ahead and look at it, testify 9 with respect to whether it is a business record? 10 A. I think we'll stick with thebusiness record. 11 Again in form and fashion this could well be a 12 duplicate, but I think it would be more expeditious 13 to just say that it is a call report and does appear 14 to be a Union Carbide document. 15 Q. I would like to hand you Plaintiffs' Exhibit 16 5541. 17 A. Again this is a call reported by JA Walsh 18 w-A-L-S-H dated 2-18-75, the customer is Georgia 19 Pacific. This does appear to be a union Carbide 20 document. 21 Q. Thank you. Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5072. 22 A. Yes, these do appear to be union carbide 23 documents, and again as far as invoices as we have 24 indicated previously there is many, many, many in the 25 asbestos repository. Court Reporters Associates Page 163 debor.txt 175 1 Q. And those invoices, sir, are organized by company 2 name; is that correct? 3 A. By customer, that's correct. 4 Q. Are distributor invoices similarly organized by 5 distributor name? 6 A. I am not aware of that distinction. Again, as we 7 have responded in the interrogatories the total 8 nature of sales to distributors are not always known. 9 There are indications, as you may have seen in some 10 of your own exhibits, that the invoice references 11 that it was a distributor sale. 12 Q. Mm-hmm. I would like to hand you Plaintiffs' 13 Exhibit 5333. 14 A. And, yes, that does appear tobe a union Carbide 15 document. Oh, regarding this there is correspondence 16 attached from Goldbond Building Products, but I would 17 assume that that is part of the repository. 18 Q. Okay. Plaintiff's 5496? 19 A. Again a callreport dated 5-8-73 to united States 20 Gypsum by TP Norris,N-o-R-R-l-S. 21 MS. NICOL: Mr. DeBor, what's the date on 22 that? 23 THE DEPONENT: I believe it is either 5-8 24 or 6-8-1973. 25 MS. NICOL: Thank you. Court Reporters Associates 0 1 THE DEPONENT: it is somewhat obliterated. 2 Q. I would like to hand you a - Page 164 176 debor.txt 3 MS. NICOL: Have we gotten a further update 4 or is it -- the facility now going to close at eight 5 p.m. eastern time? 6 MS., HUART: I haven't obtained -7 MS., NICOL: I assume that's correct still? 8 MS.. HUART: I have not obtained any further 9 update, I am not aware of one. 10 MS. NICOL: Okay, well, we're about 15 11 minutes away from that, so once again I would urge 12 counsel to complete the questioning because there 13 will be no further deposition, we have gone for nine 14 hours today of Mr. DeBor, and the record will speak 15 for itself if Plaintiff has not been able in those 16 eight hours, taking out breaks, to get everything 17 they need to oppose the summary judgment. 18 MS. HUART: I would like to hand you 19 Plaintiffs' exhibit -- I'm sorry, one second. Before 20 I hand you Plaintiffs' exhibit as we have stated 21 repeatedly this deposition continues from day to day 22 until completed, we are not completed now and it is 23 quarter to eight, we will not be completed, and we 24 could have avoided all of this if counsel for union 25 Carbide had simply responded to our requests in Court Reporters Associates 1 numerous cases to -- to agree with us and work with 2 us toward getting a records custodian available to 3 authenticate records or to do it by business record 4 affidavit, which my request went out back in Page 165 debor.txt 5 February, and here we are, you know, trying to do 6 this and get it done before the motion for summary 7 judgment. I mean I -- it is -- this was completely 8 avoidable so - 9 MS. nicol: Well, it is clear you are 10 citing Texas litigation of which this case has 11 nothing to do with, and we have worked towards 12 agreement and reached an agreement on this case, and 13 there has been eight hours of testimony -- or there 14 will be by the time we finish eight hours of 15 testimony barely touching on any topics with regards 16 to the summary judgment. I think the court -- should 17 you wish to pursue trying to take a further 18 deposition of Mr. DeBor on these categories in the 19 Brauch case the court will be very interested to see 20 the transcript and see that if you truly did have 21 questions for your summary judgment and the file 22 opposition by this Friday it would have behooved 23 counsel to ask somewhere along the third, fourth, 24 fifth or sixth hour of this deposition. 25 ms. huart: We are going to continue with Court Reporters Associates 178 1 this deposition and we're going to stay until I guess 2 we can't stay in this room and then we will take up 3 the remaining matters in the appropriate tribunals 4 including but not limited to California. 5 Q. I would like to hand you 5047. 6 MR. glasser: I would like to suggest we - Page 166 debor.txt 7 we quit at eight. 8 MS. HUART: Well - 9 MR. GLASSER: You know, whether - 10 MS. HUART: I don't want to have a mis 11 understanding about what, quote, quit means, closed 12 quote. 13 MR. GLASSER: well, I -- I understand that 14 you are going to reserve your rights to say that it 15 should continue, and we're going to reserve our 16 rights to say that it won't. 17 MS. HUART: it shouldn't, I understand. 18 MR. GLASSER: But I would like to stop 19 tonight at eight. 20 MS. HUART: I can accommodate that. 21 MS. NICOL: well, we have all had the 22 understanding at least hours ago that we were going 23 to stop at 5:30, so the fact that Plaintiffs' counsel 24 got until 8:00 was an additional two and a half hours 25 to hopefully close the -- close the questions out Court Reporters Associates 179 1 that she needed for her opposition, so to the extent 2 that she needs beyond 8:00 she will need to take it 3 up with the court. 4 MS. HUART: And furthermore we have 5 additional testimony that we intend to seek from this 6 witness that is absolutely related to category three 7 which is the extent, and there has -- there has been 8 very little testimony on the record. Page 167 debor.txt 9 We are having to authenticate documents one by 10 one as a result of the inability of counsel to simply 11 work with us and get a deposition and get these - 12 get these records authenticated ahead of time, so 13 having to go through them one by one -- and I am not 14 finished. Having to go through them one by one is - 15 rests on your shoulders, not ours, and that's what 16 we're doing because that's the only choice we have at 17 this point. That is what is taking so long. Now - 18 MS. NICOL: Well, what - 19 MS. HUART: There is still -- there is 20 still additional testimony that I intend to elicit 21 from this witness that is absolutely covered under 22 category three. I have not had an opportunity to do 23 this and I will have an opportunity to do so. 24 Q. Now, sir, have you had a chance to look at 5047? 25 MS. NICOL: if you would like me to wait Court Reporters Associates 1 until you are done maybe you would afford me the 180 2 courtesy not to run right into a question when you 3 know I have a response to make on the record in that 4 regard. 5 You have gone through pages and pages and pages 6 of documents less than 10 of which deal with the time 7 period in question that was the designated and agreed 8 to time frame for the scope of this deposition. As I 9 said to you and Mr. Armitage nearly five hours ago 10 should Plaintiffs choose to choose the course of Page 168 debor.txt 11 delaying out this deposition purposefully by asking 12 about documents post September '68 and not asking 13 about questions that they feltwere vital for 14 opposition to the summary judgment they did so at 15 their peril. 16 So the fact that you have chosen to spend all 17 this time authenticating documents post September '68 18 beyond the scope of our agreement and the fact that I 19 allowed you to do that I made clear was with peril 20 for Plaintiffs, that they would not get to ask the 21 other questions if they couldn't somehow do it today 22 and ask those questions first; but of course we 23 purposefully asked questions about documents all in 24 the 70s and 80s having nothing to do with the scope 25 of this deposition and the time period involved just Court Reporters Associates 1 so we could come to this point after eight hours of 181 2 testimony later and say gee I didn't get to ask my 3 questions regarding the summary judgment. You should 4 have asked those questions right at the beginning. 5 Q. Have you had an opportunity to review 5047, sir? 6 A. No. 7 Q. I will try to alert you next time there is going 8 to be a lengthy speech so perhaps you could utilize 9 the time to review the documents. 10 A. This document on the first page doesappear to be 11 Union Carbide Belgium correspondence from Thomas j. 12 Hall. There is in the handwriting in marginalia I Page 169 debor.txt 13 cannot interpret the initials on that. The sticker 14 does indicate during Dernehl deposition in 1984. The 15 attachment is a printed four or five lines that the 16 printing is different, and I can't see whether the 17 old Bates stamp is sequential. So, again, the first 18 page certainly is a Union Carbide document with notes 19 about the marginalia, and the second page I can't 20 tell you. 21 Q. Do you recognize whose handwriting - 22 A. No, I do not. 23 Q. -- is the marginalia? 24 A. No, I do not. 25 Q. I would like to hand you Exhibit 5322 which I am Court Reporters Associates 1 sure -- perhaps you can tell me have you seen that 182 2 document? 3 A. Yes, I have. 4 Q. Frequently? Well, strike that. You have seen 5 that document before? 6 A. Yes, I have. 7 Q. Is this a business record of Union Carbide? 8 A. I believe that it is, yes. 9 Q. I would like to hand you Exhibit 51 -- pardon me, 10 yes, 5125. 11 A. This is a multi call report, call the numerous 12 customers apparently. Again, the document speaks for 13 itself. There is -- in the usual place there is not 14 a customer. It is dated 8-11-75 but -- by TP Norris, Page 170 debor.txt 15 and again references various customers. 16 Q. Okay. Thank you. Well, I have a stack of 17 documents that I still need to have authenticated, 18 and I am not sure it looks like I have time for one 19 more, it is hard to pick which one should be the - 20 the one remaining one for - 21 the VIDEOGRAPHER: it won't be too long 22 before we run out of videotape I might add. 23 Q. Let me hand you 5266, I guess it doesn't matter. 24 A. Again this document is unattributed. It does 25 list union Carbide products or calidria products, but Court Reporters Associates 183 1 as far as determining the author whether this was in 2 fact a union carbide document I cannot tell. 3 Q. Again, is this something that you would be able 4 to tell by going to the asbestos repository to see - 5 MS. NICOL: Calls for speculation. 6 Q. -- whether there is a document similar to this or 7 documents similar to these in the repository? 8 A. Again I think that that presumes that the 9 document is there. If the document is not there it 10 would be difficult to -11 Q. Mm-hmm. 12 A. -- define the negative. 13 MS. HUART: Okay, well, I would like to 14 make a request on the record that that be done. 15 That's with respect to 5266. 16 MS. NICOL: same response to the request. Page 171 debor.txt 17 MS. HUART: We have -- pardon me, sorry. 18 It is now 8:00 and we are, as I have stated before, 19 reserving the right to resume this deposition to 20 finish our questioning concerning the categories in 21 which this witness is being made available; and I 22 understand that that's subject to dispute, but that's 23 our position. I think we already know your position. 24 And thank you, Mr. DeBor, for your cooperation. 25 MS. NICOL: Yes, thank you, Mr. DeBor, Court Reporters Associates 184 1 appreciate your time and patience over the last nine 2 hours. 3 MR. GLASSER: Thanks to everybody actually. 4 I think that this was a difficult situation and 5 actually I think everybody was pretty good. 6 the VIDEOGRAPHER: That's the end of the 7 deposition approximately 7:57 p.m. 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Page 172 debor.txt 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Court Reporters Associates 1 I have carefully read the foregoing deposition 2 and the answers made by me are true. 3 4 5 6 7 8 EDWARD W. DeBor 9 10 STATE OF VERMONT 11 COUNTY OF 12 At in said county this 13 day of , 20 personally appeared the 14 above-named EDWARD w. DeBor, and made oath that the 15 foregoing answers, subscribed by him, are true. 16 17 18 Before Me, 19 Page 173 185 debor.txt 20 21 22 Notary Public 23 24 25 CERTIFICATE Court Reporters Associates 186 1 2 3 I, TAMMY L. martell, rpr, Court Reporter and 4 Notary Public, hereby certify that the foregoing 5 pages, numbered 4 through 184, inclusive, is a true 6 record of the testimony given by EDWARD w. DEBOR, 7 taken before me on Tuesday, March 26, 2002, at 11:26 8 a.m., at the offices of Proximity, South Burlington, 9 Vermont, and transcribed under my direction. 10 11 12 13 14 TAMMY L. MARTELL, RPR 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Page 174 debor.txt 22 23 24 25 Court Reporters Associates Page 175