Plaintiff Dan Freeman filed a Seaman’s Petition for Damages against a number of defendants under state law, general maritime law, and the Jones Act on July 26, 2011. Freeman alleged that while he was working on drilling rigs, he was exposed to asbestos drilling mud products, and ultimately developed “asbestos maladies” as a result of the defendants’ asbestos products.
By the time of trial in 2015, only two defendants remained, to which the jury returned a defense verdict dismissing all claims with prejudice. Freeman timely appealed and listed, the following two arguments, among others, which relate to evidentiary rules by the district court during the jury trial: (1) First, Freeman argues the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a newspaper advertisement by Freeman’s attorneys. The court disagreed and found that the admission into evidence of the lawyer’s advertisement did not have a substantial effect on the outcome of this case because the jury ultimately decided that Freeman did not, in fact, have asbestosis. The circumstances under which Mr. Freeman might have retained his attorneys are irrelevant as to the reason why the jury found no liability. (2) Second, the trial court erred in admitting into evidence correspondence between Freeman and his attorneys. Freeman argued this letter was protected by the attorney-client privilege. However, the court noted that letter was attached to a radiology report and introduced into evidence through the medical records. This effectively constituted a waiver of the attorney-client privilege.
In conclusion, the Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit affirmed the trial court’s judgment finding that Freeman had not satisfied his burden of proving that the trial court’s evidentiary rulings substantially affected the outcome of his case to such an extent which would be required to conduct a de novo review of the appellate record, and vacate the jury’s verdict in favor of defendants.