Document k5gxO09YGYoBr0rK7EMd53qn
FILE NAME: Goodyear (GY) DATE: 2008 Oct 9 DOC#: GY078 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Legal - Deposition of Joseph L. Holtshouser
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COURT OF COMMON PLEAS
CUYAHOGA COUNTY, OHIO
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4 GARY CONNELL, Executor )
of the Estate of ROBERT )
5 CONNELL,
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Plaintiff,
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vs.
) ) Case No.609220
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8 GOODYEAR TIRE AND,
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RUBBER CO., ET AL.,
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Defendant(s). )
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DEPOSITION OF JOSEPH L. HOLTSHOUSER
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Thursday, October 9, 2008
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Deposition of JOSEPH L. HOLTSHOUSER, called by
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the Plaintiff for examination under the Ohio
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Rules of Civil Procedure, taken before me, the
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undersigned, Lorraine A. Litvin, a Notary Public
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in and for the State of Ohio, at Vorys, Sater,
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Seymour and Pease, 52 East Gay Street, Columbus,
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Ohio, commencing at 11:00 a.m. the day and date
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above set forth.
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1 APPEARANCES:
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On Behalf of the Plaintiff:
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John Mismas, Esq.
Bevan & Associates, LPA, Inc.
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10360 Northfield Road
Northfield, OH 44067
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330-467-4493
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On Behalf of Defendant Goodyear Tire &
Rubber C o .:
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Richard Schuster, Esq.
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Elizabeth Smith, Esq.
Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, LLP
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52 East Gay Street
P.O. Box 1008
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Columbus, OH 43216
614-464-5475
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OBJECTION INDEX
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BY MR. SCHUSTER
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BY MR.SCHUSTER
............ 83
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BY MR. SCHUSTER
84
BY MR.SCHUSTER
............ 85
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BY MR. SCHUSTER
85
BY MR.SCHUSTER
............ 87
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BY MR. SCHUSTER
142
BY MR.SCHUSTER
...............151
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BY MR. SCHUSTER
157
BY MR.SCHUSTER
...............171
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BY MR. SCHUSTER
172
BY MR.SCHUSTER
...............173
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BY MR. SCHUSTER
178
BY MR.SCHUSTER
...............178
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BY MR. SCHUSTER
179
BY MR.SCHUSTER
...............180
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BY MR. SCHUSTER
181
BY MR.SCHUSTER
...............184
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JOSEPH L. HOLTSHOUSER
2 called by the Plaintiff for examination under
3 the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure, after having
4 been first duly sworn, as hereinafter certified,
5 was examined and testified as follows:
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EXAMINATION
7 BY MR. MISMAS:
8 Q Good morning, Mr. Holtshouser. How are you?
9 A I'm fine.
10 Q How was your flight in? 11 A Excellent. 12 Q You flew in from Dallas?
13 A Yes.
14 Q Will you state your full name?
15 A Joseph L. Holtshouser.
16 Q You have given depositions in the past?
17 A This will be my fourth deposition for your
18 firm.
19 Q I mean, you have generally given depositions
20 in the past?
21 A Yes.
22 Q You know the basic rules of a deposition,
23 right?
24 A Yes.
25 Q I'll go over them just in case. If you need
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1 a break at any time, let me know. I won't hold
2 you hostage here.
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If I ask you a question and you don't
4 understand it, ask me to rephrase it. If you
5 answer it, we'll assume you knew what it meant
6 and the answer will stick.
7 A Understand.
8 Q If you don't know the answer to the question,
9 "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer.
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MR. MISMAS: Rick, I'll ask
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you, don't say through the
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deposition "if you know." I mean,
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he's already been put on notice if
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he doesn't know he can answer that
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question.
16 Q You currently live in Texas, correct?
17 A Yes.
18 Q Okay. You have lived there since about what,
19 2003?
20 A 2004.
21 Q Okay. After you left Goodyear you moved to
22 Texas?
23 A About a year after I left Goodyear.
24 Q The weather's a little better down there.
25 A It is.
1 Q They still are.
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2 A Yeah.
3 Q I guess my question, though, is -- so we
4 talked about their cutting edge in industrial
5 hygiene in the rubber industry, right?
6 A Yes.
7 Q And the job of industrial hygienist, you
8 said, it was for the employer to protect the
9 workers, right?
10 A For the employer to provide a safe and
11 healthful workplace for the worker.
12 Q So part of that would be keeping up with the
13 medical and scientific literature of using it in
14 your plant, right?
15 A And keeping up with it as best you can.
16 Q So if there were articles on mesothelioma in
17 the medical and scientific literature, Goodyear
18 should have been aware of that, shouldn't they?
19 A It's speculation. Back at that time we
20 didn't have the Internet. We didn't have faxes.
21 We didn't have all that kind of stuff back in the
22 1960's. You had telephone service.
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I don't think that the industrial hygienists
24 back then should be held accountable for what
25 might be published in Europe at that time.
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Certainly, if you were going to school at
2 maybe at Harvard Medical School or some place
3 like that, they might have it in their library,
4 but not in Ohio and Akron in that time period.
5 I'm not going to go with that.
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They principally relied on the American
7 Hygiene Association Journal. That's what Bob
8 Manning said.
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Dr. Johnson read the Journal of the American
10 Medical Association and he read the Journal of
11 Occupational Medicine. He said every now and
12 then he got a hold of the New England Journal of
13 Medicine.
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I think his testimony was he never saw at
15 that time, during that decade, a copy of the
16 British Medical Journal, so I don't go with that.
17 Q What about the New York Academy of Sciences
18 though?
19 A I don't know if they subscribed to that or
20 not.
21 Q It's a fact in '64 Selikoff gave a speech on
22 mesothelioma.
23 A It was published in '65 by then, yeah. I
24 think that certainly they would have been aware
25 of it.
1 Q Goodyear?
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2 A By '65.
3 Q Can I ask my question so I can get the
4 answer?
5 A Sorry.
6 Q You know what I mean. We talk and it gets a
7 little choppy. So Goodyear knew by 1965 asbestos
8 causes mesothelioma, correct?
9 A In my estimation I think they would have,
10 yes.
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(15-minute recess)
12 Q I guess next it says you were going to
13 testify about Goodyear's knowledge with respect
14 to industrial hygiene. I think we already
15 covered that.
16 A We covered that.
17 Q I'm trying to shorten this up. Next it
18 states that you will be testifying as to Goodyear
19 Aerospace's separate industrial hygiene program.
20 Can you tell me a little bit about that?
21 A Corporate had the main design concept and
22 passed it to the subsidiaries and then the
23 subsidiaries implemented the design. They put in
24 a facsimile of the corporate industrial hygiene
25 program fit to their operations.
1 Q You used the worddesign --
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2 A Concept.
3 Q Okay. I mean, were these, like, rules or
4 regulations or what you should do, or what were
5 they?
6 A They're not rules or regulations. It's a
7 concept, a protocol, an outline of.
8 Q Like a policy?
9 A Overall, maybe.Again, it's not an official
10 policy that went out in, say, a standard practice
11 letter. That was official policy. This was
12 support to the subsidiaries.
13 Q Would they taylor to the specific subsidiary
14 depending on what they would do?
15 A What they would do for theirs, yes.
16 Q I mean, did they taylor it to the specific
17 facility by what they actually did at that
18 facility, like whether they made brakes or tires
19 or hoses?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Okay. If they were sending a protocol,
22 that's what you called it, over to Goodyear
23 Aerospace, it would be a protocol about the vinyl
24 division and making brakes and things of that
25 nature?