Document zddJv7RkVKn9wVX3a3RenB29m

>I/ . 1 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 2 FOR THE DISTRICT OF SOUTH CAROLINA 3 . GREENVILLE DIVISION 4 GREENVILLE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT, 5 Plaintiff, CIVIL ACTION NO. 82-3142-14. i 6 . -versus- 7* ` UNITED STATES GYPSUM COMPANY, 8 W. R. GRACE COMPANY, and NATIONAL GYPSUM'COMPANY, 'Greenville, Souch Carolina ` 'July 12, 1984; 9:00 a.n.- 'I ' ' 9 Defendants. 10 11 PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT MOTIONS 12 13 BEFORE 14 HON. WILLIAM W. WILKINS, JR., Presiding, United States District Judge. 15 TRANSCRIPT ORDERED BY; 16 APPEARANCES: 17 FOR THE PLAINTIFF; 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 FOR THE DEFENDANTS 25 (U. S.- Gypsum Co.) DANIEL A. SPEIGHTS, Esq li DANIEL A. SPEIGHTS, Esq. ANN KIMMEL, Esq. P. 0. Box 621 Hampton, S. c. 29924 DAVID B. WARD, Esa. HORTON, DRANDY, HAGINS, WARD S JOHNSON- '- P. 0. Box 10167 Greenville, S. c. 39602 BLATT & FALES By; TERRY E. RICHARDSON, JR.,Esa. ROBINSON, MCFADDEN, MOORE, & WILLIAMS By: Frank Ellerbe, Esa. Suite 600, P. 0/ Box 944 Columbia, S. C. 29202 POPE TAB r 1 i buildings or whether it should relate to all other asbestos j products. As I \mderstand Your Honor's ruling in January, *| 2 3 It was because of the -notice issue Your Honor felt the 4 documents or information relating to all asbestos products 5 might be relevant on the issue of whether U. S.G. had notice S of possible health hazard. Since that time, there has been 7 considerable production of documents and discovery and we a believe we have fully complied with Your Honor's Order on ; i 9 that subject. And I would like to recount for you, if I may,; 10 what has happened since that time. As I read Mr. Speights' i 11 motion, while it has a lot of complaints about what happened I 2 before January 1984, and what happened before Judge McManr.'s j 13 in Lexington and what happened before Judge Cox in Richland, ! I 14 so forth, as I understand the.issue before Your Honor, it is 15 whether under Rule 37 USG has willfully failed to comply . 16 with Your Honor's Order of January 1984. Now I have had 17 Mr. Ellerbe, who was in the discovery proceedings prior to 18 today, furnish an affidavit of everything that has happened t j 19 since that date in the way of production. And I would like 20 to hand it to Your Honor, and a copy to Mr. Speights. And 21 Mr. Ellerbe is here to verify the truth of what he said in 22 this affidavit. The point is, Your HOnor - would you like ' ! 23 to take a moment to look at it? * 24 THE COURT: Let's go ahead. 25 ' ` MR. BROWN: The point is we have furnished to ) 1 plaintiff in response to Your Honor's Order all the sales j 2 records that U. S. Gypsum has of all asbestos-containing r ,itj3 products used in construction in South Carolina. We have 4 furnished a list of all asbestos-containing products that 3 are manufactured by U. S. Gypsum, or that ever were manu 5 factured by U. S. Gypsum. We have given Mr. Speights access 7 to U. S. Gypsum's research 'library in Chicago to go through a everything that .library had and he has access and he availed 9 himself of it. We have furnished to Mr. Speights all docu 10 ments we have been able to locate concerning the notice of j 11 possible health hazard. We have given a list of them and ! .12 given the documents themselves. i .! 13 Now, there came up recently a request from Mr. Speights j 14 for all workmen compensation claims and we furnished that ) IS information. Last week he served a notice asking us to 16 produce in Chicago the person most knowledgeable about dis 17 ability claims for USG,.and we interpreted that to mean 18 workmen compensation claims which we already furnished and 19 furnished a witness who testified about it. At that time 20 Mr. Speights asked whether there were other kinds of dis 21 ability benefits that employees might get, and we realized 22 that in addition to workers compensationclaims there is a 23 disability plan chat USG has, which is one is a retirement . 24 disability and another - I mean disability retirement plan 25 and another is long-term disability plan to which the em-