One of the longest trials in Maryland ended yesterday with yet another verdict against a group of asbestos companies -- and the sentimental parting of a judge and his jury.
More than seven months after Baltimore's second consolidated asbestos trial opened, Judge Richard T. Rombro shook the six jurors' hands as attorneys from both sides stood and applauded. Then, the jurors made a gesture of their own, presenting one lawyer with a hand-crocheted, hooded shawl for his 10-day-old son. The judge and lawyers said they'd never seen anything like it. Then again, not many trials span nearly three trimesters -- long enough for Gardner M. Duvall Jr. to come to term. Long enough, also, for one plaintiff to win a multimillion-dollar verdict and, weeks later, die of cancer.
Indeed, for the past several months, Baltimore's Courtroom No. 1 has been like a small town, where childbirth is celebrated and death is mourned, where battles are fought and friendships are cast. Nowhere was this more true than in the jury room, where the small group of city residents came together over birthday cakes, fried fish and a pinochle deck to hash out decisions affecting thousands of Maryland workers.
When the work was done yesterday, Joan Davis looked at her fellow jurors and said: "We're more than friends now. We're a little family."
Verdicts returned yesterday showed just how complex the jurors' task was. Presenting the court with a half-inch stack of paperwork, they ruled that 14 companies were liable for damages under "cross-claims" filed by three other asbestos companies. The jury also said two companies, Lloyd E. Mitchell Inc. and E. L. Stebbing & Co., should be indemnified by Georgia Pacific Corp. and W. R. Grace & Co.-Conn. And they ruled that Westinghouse Electric Corp. and Harbison-Walker Refractories must pay $2 in punitive damages for every dollar in actual damages assessed in forthcoming "minitrials" held for more than 10,000 construction and ship yard workers. The jury assigned a similar "multiplier" of $1 to Rapid American Corp.
All in a week's work. All this after digesting testimony filling 35,000 transcript pages. "The court reporter, I felt so sorry for her fingers," juror Sandra Clark said.
In December, the jury deliberated for 11 days before finding 11 companies negligent for failing to warn workers about the health hazards posed by asbestos exposure. Jurors walked out of the courtroom on Dec. 19 with the Christmas gifts they'd exchanged.
"There were people -- judges and lawyers -- who told me that a trial of this type could not succeed," Judge Rombro told the panel after yesterday's verdicts were read.
"It was too complicated. There were too many parties, plaintiffs and defendants. The trial would be too long. You won't be able to get jurors who can sit that long and remember the evidence. You have proved all the doubters wrong."
Ted Flerlage, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said: "I have never in my life seen a jury as dedicated as this jury. They literally didn't miss a day, didn't miss an hour from the trial."
Some jurors continued to work at their regular jobs, when they could. For forewoman Betty Anderson, a teacher's aide in city schools, that meant working mornings, evenings and weekends. For Ms. Clark, that meant snoozing for a couple hours after a day of jury duty and then pulling a night shift as a postal clerk at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
Back in June, when the six jurors and 10 alternates were selected for the trial, enthusiasm for doing one's civic duty was not running high. "We all liked to have died," Ms. Anderson recalled.
"When you first saw the courtroom full of lawyers, it was frightening," Ms. Clark said.
"I didn't like being asked to make a decision on something this important when so many people in positions to know what was right and what was wrong could not make those decisions."
Eventually, however, she and the other jurors settled into their roles. Four days a week, seven hours a day. Taking copious notes, and dating them. Combating the tedium by watching the lawyers.
"One girl and I would always pay attention to the ties, they would wear some really interesting ties. We would be listening to what they were saying but we were checking them out, too," Ms. Clark said.
Ms. Anderson, the jury forewoman, said she was heartbroken when she learned that one of the plaintiffs had died. Carroll Morrow, a 72-year-old retired pipefitter from Lutherville, died Jan. 28 of mesothelioma. Less than six weeks earlier, the jury had awarded him and his wife $7 million.
The deliberations weren't particularly stormy, jurors said. When a point was contested, they'd turn to the 20 boxes of documents in the jury room and fish out the pertinent paperwork.
Ms. Clark said she was more concerned about deciding which companies should be held responsible than she was in influencing the amount of damages awarded. "The figures were just too large for me to even comprehend," she said.
It was Ms. Clark who crocheted the hooded shawl for defense lawyer Gardner M. Duvall's baby boy. Mr. Duvall's son was born Jan. 30 -- the day he'd been scheduled for his closing argument in the cross-claims portion of the trial. When he made his argument two days later, he shared his good news with the jury.
"He was so into his newborn I thought he would appreciate his gift," Ms. Clark said. Noting that the jury had been selected nearly nine months earlier, she added, "That was sort of our asbestos baby."