In this case, the plaintiff, Joel Hernandezcueva, alleged he was exposed to asbestos while working as a janitor in the Fluor complex in the 1990s. It was alleged that defendant E.F. Brady was a subcontractor doing drywall and plastering work with asbestos-containing materials manufactured by Kaiser and Hamilton during the construction of the complex in the 1970s. During trial and following completion of the plaintiff’s case in chief, Brady’s motion for partial nonsuit dismissing the plaintiff’s claims of strict liability, misrepresentation, and intentional failure to warn was granted. This was based on Brady’s evidence that the uniform building code did not prohibit the use of drywall and joint compound that contained asbestos and testimony that asbestos-containing plastering products were not a raised topic of concern with contractors in California until the early 1980s. On the remaining claims of negligence and punitive damages, a jury ruled in favor of Brady. The plaintiff filed a motion for a new trial based on judicial misconduct, which the trial court denied.
The court reversed the lower court’s dismissal of the strict products liability claim and remanded the case. In its analysis, the court assessed: “E. F. Brady’s role in providing the products in light of the policy considerations underlying the imposition of strict liability, namely, whether E. F. Brady was in a position to enhance product safety or exert pressure on the manufacturer to promote that end, and bear the costs of compensating for injuries.”
As the court held: “Viewed in light of the policies underlying the doctrine of strict liability, the Hernandezcuevas’ evidence sufficed to show that E. F. Brady was involved in the stream of commerce relating to the defective products. E. F. Brady was capable of bearing the costs of compensating for injuries due to the products, as it was a subcontractor specializing in heavy commercial projects, made sizeable purchases of the defective products, and always arranged to pass its material costs through to the ultimate user. Moreover, due to E. F. Brady’s relationship with Kaiser and Hamilton, it was ‘in a position to exert pressure on the manufacturer’ to improve product safety.”