HARRISBURG – The state Superior Court has ruled a widow is entitled to a new trial after a Philadelphia jury ruled against her in an asbestos lawsuit centering on her husband's mesothelioma.
Colleen Schrader sued for the estate of Ernest Schrader, who said he was convinced he contracted mesothelioma after being exposed to asbestos while working with a pipe that defendant Ameron International Corp. manufactured.
A Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jury ruled in favor of Ameron and the trial judge denied the plaintiff’s post-trial motion, stating that the jury heard enough evidence to make its decision.
In her appeal, Schrader assigned five errors to the trial proceedings. Four were shot down by the Superior Court, but one stuck.
"(W)e conclude that the trial court committed an abuse of discretion that may have affected the verdict in refusing to allow the jury to review a requested exhibit, for no stated reason beyond its general preference not to allow exhibits to go out with the jury and Ameron’s concern that it might cause them to 'be here all day,'" says the opinion, which was authored by Judge Mary Jane Bowes.
The evidence in question was a report on air sampling for asbestos authored in 1972. The trial judge told jurors to use their recollections of what was said about it during trial rather than send the report to them.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania case number 2609-EDA-2018