Scapa Dryer Fabrics, Inc. v. Saville

GREENE, J. Petitioner, Scapa Dryer Fabrics, Inc. (“Scapa”), appeals the Court of Special Appeals’s decision in Scapa v. Saville, 190 Md.App. 331 , 988 A.2d 1059 (2010) (“Saville II ”) affirming the judgment of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, which awarded damages to Respondent, Mr. Carl L. Saville (“Mr. Saville”). 1 Petitioner asks us to review alleged procedural errors by the trial judge, review the sufficiency of the evidence presented on the issue of causation regarding Respondent’s negligence claim, and to reduce the amount of compensatory damages in light of settlement payments received by Respondent from special trusts created under federal bankruptcy law. ⁵⁰¹ We shall affirm the judgment in part and reverse in part and remand for further proceedings. Facts and Procedural History On June 14, 2002, Carl and Sharon Saville filed suit against approximately 80 companies 2 claiming negligence, strict liability, loss of consortium, conspiracy and fraud relating to Mr. Saville’s asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. A judgment against Scapa was entered on October 15, 2003 in the amount of $3,000,000.00. In an unreported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals vacated that judgment, Scapa v. Saville, No. 2172, Sept. Term, 2004 (Nov. 17, 2005) (“Saville I”) and remanded the case for a new trial.

Prior to commencement of the new trial, Mr. Saville settled with three defendants, against whom Scapa unsuccessfully asserted cross-claims for joint tort-feasor liability and contribution, namely Viacom, Inc. fik/a Westinghouse Electric Corp. (“Westinghouse”), AstenJohnson, Inc. (“Asten”), and Albany International Corp. (“Albany”). The new trial began on January 8, 2008 and concluded on January 25, 2008. The jury found Scapa and co-defendant Wallace and Gale Asbestos Settlement Trust (“W & G”) to be jointly and severally liable and returned a verdict in the amount of $1,718,000.00. The trial judge subsequently ⁵⁰² reduced the verdict to account for settlement payments that Mr. Saville had received from certain bankrupt asbestos-containing product manufacturers, namely Celotex Trust, the Johns Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust, and the H.K. Porter, Inc. Asbestos Trust, resulting in a final verdict of $1,684,415.00.

Scapa moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (“JNOV”) as to Mr. Saville’s claims and as to its cross-claims. Both motions were denied, as was Scapa’s request, in the alternative, for a new trial, and for a reduction in the verdict to account for any and all bankruptcy trust payments received by Mr. Saville. Final judgment was entered on April 30, 2008 and appeals were timely noted. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the Circuit Court’s judgment in Saville II, holding, relevant to the instant case: that there was sufficient evidence that Scapa’s product was the proximate cause of Mr. Saville’s injuries to support the trial court’s denial of Scapa’s motions for judgment and for JNOV; that Mr. Saville’s “admissions” did not conclusively establish liability against the settling cross-defendants; that the trial judge’s denial of Scapa’s JNOV motion on its cross-claims would not be disturbed on the basis of procedural defects; and that the trial court had no evidence upon which to base further reduction of the verdict.

Saville II, 190 Md.App. at 348, 351, 353 , 988 A.2d at 1068,1070-71 . Scapa presents the following questions to this Court, which we slightly reworded and reordered for clarity: 1. Did Mr. Saville present sufficient evidence to satisfy the “frequency, regularity, proximity” test for substantial factor causation of Scapa’s products for his injuries? 2. Did Scapa preserve its right to move for JNOV on its cross-claims? 3.

Did Mr. Saville’s admissions under Md. Rule 2 — 424(d) “conclusively establish” liability against the settling cross-defendants? 4. Should the judgment against Scapa be reduced under the Maryland Uniform Contribution Among Joint Tortfeasors Act to account for payments that Mr. Saville ⁵⁰³ received from trusts established pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 524 of the Bankruptcy Code (“ § 524(g) Trusts”)? I. Scapa’s Balbos claim Scapa challenges the Court of Special Appeals’s application of the “frequency, regularity, proximity” test, enunciated in Eagle-Picher v. Balbos, which is the common law evidentiary standard used for establishing substantial-factor causation in negligence cases alleging asbestos exposure. Balbos, 326 Md. 179, 213 , 604 A.2d 445, 461 (1992) (holding that “[t]he jury ... could find that the decedent was frequently exposed to fibers from the Eagle “66” asbestos cement in the proximity of the engine room of ships where that product was regularly used.”).

Our task upon Scapa’s challenge to the sufficiency of Mr. Saville’s evidence, is to determine whether the intermediate appellate court’s judgment upholding the trial court’s dismissal of Scapa’s motions for judgment and for JNOV on Mr. Saville’s claims was in error. An appellate court reviews “the trial court’s decision to allow or deny judgment or JNOV to determine whether it was legally correct[,]” Saville II, 190 Md.App. at 343 , 988 A.2d at 1065 (citing Houghton v. Forrest, 183 Md.App. 15, 26 , 959 A.2d 816, 823-24 (2008)), while viewing the evidence and the reasonable inferences to be drawn from it in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and determining whether the facts and circumstances only permit one inference with regard to the issue presented. See Md. Rule 2-519 (2010) (“Motion for Judgment”). We will find error in a denial of a motion for judgment or JNOV if the evidence “does not rise above speculation, hypothesis, and conjecture, and does not lead to the jury’s conclusion with reasonable certainty.” Saville II, 190 Md.App. at 343 , 988 A.2d at 1066 (quoting Bartholomee v. Casey, 103 Md.App. 34, 51 , 651 A.2d 908 (1994)).

Our resolution of this question in Scapa’s favor would render the remaining questions moot, therefore, we address it first. ⁵⁰⁴ In Balbos , we described how a court would assess “whether the exposure of any given bystander to any particular supplier’s product [would] be legally sufficient to permit a finding of substantial-factor causation,” noting that: The finding involves the interrelationship between the use of a defendant’s product at the workplace and the activities of the plaintiff at the workplace. This requires an understanding of the physical characteristics of the workplace and of the relationship between the activities of the direct users of the product and the bystander plaintiff. Within that context, the factors to be evaluated include the nature of the product, the frequency of its use, the proximity in distance and in time, of a plaintiff to the use of a product, and the regularity of the exposure of that plaintiff to the use of that product. Balbos, 326 Md. at 210 , 604 A.2d at 460 (emphasis added and citations omitted).

Relying on the Balbos “frequency, regularity, proximity” test, the Court of Special Appeals held that there was “more than enough circumstantial evidence to conclude that [Mr. Saville] performed a significant amount of work on Scapa’s product ... [that Mr. Saville] was significantly exposed to Scapa’s product ... and that [the jury] did not contradict itself when it found [Scapa] liable and the [c]ross[d]efendants not hable.” Saville II, 190 Md.App. at 345 ^18, 988 A.2d at 1067-68 . Therefore, it upheld the trial court’s denial of the motions, finding sufficient proffered evidence, when viewed in a light most favorable to Mr. Saville, to generate a jury question on causation. Saville II, 190 Md. App. at 345-48 , 988 A.2d at 1067-68 . Scapa asserts that “[t]he Court of Special Appeals’s published opinion in Saville II stands for the proposition that a plaintiff in an asbestos product-liability case may reach the jury if he establishes the mere possibility of an undefined, unquantifiable exposure to asbestos[,]” and that the intermediate appellate court’s holding “waters down” the Balbos test.

We disagree. Scapa raises five “evidentiary gaps,” which it asserts were fatal to Mr. Saville’s negligence claim and made it impossible that a jury could have determined that the alleged injuries ⁵⁰⁵ were caused by Scapa’s dryer felts without resorting to “an untenable chain of speculative inferences,” namely: (1) no evidence on the amount of time Mr. Saville spent on the machine where Scapa’s dryer felts were installed; (2) no evidence on his proximity to the second position of machine number 9 (“No. 9 Machine”) where Scapa’s asbestos-containing felt indisputably ran; (3) no evidence on proximity of different machine positions to each other; (4) medical expert opinion testimony on the causation of Mr. Saville’s mesothelioma based on “assumed facts that were never proven at trial;” and (5) no “discernable evidence” of the level of exposure to respirable asbestos fibers specifically caused by Scapa’s felts. A. Evidence of exposure When viewed in the light most favorable to Mr. Saville, however, the evidence that Mr. Saville regularly handled and/or worked in arm’s length to Scapa’s asbestos-containing felts on a daily basis for at least one year was legally sufficient to permit a jury question on proximate cause, and, therefore, the denials of Scapa’s motions for judgment and JNOV were not in error. The “frequency” prong of the Balbos test addresses the “frequency of use [of the product]” in the plaintiffs workplace.

Balbos, 326 Md. at 210 , 604 A.2d at 460 (stating “the factors to be evaluated include the nature of the product, the frequency of its use”). Scapa’s witness, Ivan Fearnhead, testified that Scapa provided 75 felts to the Westvaco Mill between 1964 and 1978, which ran on the No. 8 and No. 9 paper machines and that two of those felts contained asbestos. Mr. Saville testified that he was employed in the Eight and Nine Machine Room Building of the Westvaco Mill from 1968 until 1978, with a brief hiatus for educational leave from 1974 until 1976. Additionally, according to master cards 3 kept by Scapa, and ⁵⁰⁶ submitted to the jury as Plaintiffs exhibits, Scapa provided two asbestos-containing dryer felts which ran on the second position of the No. 9 Machine from October 1969 until November 1970.

Scapa contends that Mr. Saville presented no evidence on the time that he spent between machines No. 8 and No. 9, and that because Scapa’s asbestos-containing felts were only on No. 9, the jury could only speculate about the frequency of his exposure to those felts. There was circumstantial evidence, however, that Mr. Saville did work on machine No. 9 by way of Mr. Shoemaker’s video testimony that as Mr. Saville’s cohort he worked on machine No. 8 during the same shift as Mr. Saville, both of them being headquartered in the dryer sections of their respective machines. Frequency, therefore, was addressed directly by the testimony of Ivan Fearnhead, which linked Scapa to asbestos-containing felts at Westvaco; by the master cards that established, with particularity, where those felts ran; as well as a co-worker’s testimony on the logistics of the maintenance work. While not explicitly defined in Balbos or subsequent cases, regularity in the context of asbestos exposure indicates periodic exposure, i.e., something that happens at regular intervals.

Balbos, 326 Md. at 213 , 604 A.2d at 461 (involving a work-site where decedent was “covered regularly with asbestos dust”). Mr. Saville and co-worker, Mr. Shoemaker, testified that their duty as “broke-hustlers” 4 was to keep the six felts that ran on each of the No. 8 and No. 9 machines clean and running. Mr. Shoemaker testified that he scraped only on machine No. 8, leaving by reasonable inference, Mr. Saville scraped on machine No. 9 when the two were working on the same shift. Mr. Saville testified that at least once, and sometimes twice a day for about 10-20 minutes, the broke hustlers would scrape ⁵⁰⁷ the dryer felts clean with a big blade while standing about an arm’s length away from the moving felt. 5 Mr. Saville’s testimony about the scraping process being “hot and dusty” was corroborated by Mr. Shoemaker’s testimony that the scraped residue would “fly in the area” as opposed to building up on the surface of the scraping tool. 6 Mr. Saville and Mr. Shoemaker both testified that their work-sites were dusty from both the scraping and the blowing 7 of the felts.

Testimony from Mr. Dennis Davidson, a former W & G employee, indicated that dust created from work on the asbestos-insulated pipes throughout the Eight and Nine Paper Machine Building would not be sucked through the ventilation system and would remain in the building, thus providing more circumstantial evidence that any dust containing asbestos fibers would remain in Mr. Saville’s work-site. In addition, Mr. Saville testified that most of the scraping was done at the first section of the machine because that is where the sheet was the wettest and the “scale” or residue could be more easily scraped from the felt. Conflicting testimony was heard by the jury suggesting that the dryer felts would have to be changed, and therefore handled directly, every six months, but no less than every few years. While our review of the record uncovered contradictory accounts of the “dustiness” of the atmosphere, bearing on the likelihood of the existence of respirable asbestos fibers, it is not the province of an appellate court to weigh the evidence ⁵⁰⁸ because the trier of fact, i.e., “the jury and the jury only has the power to assess the weight of the evidence, a power which passes to the trial judge’s discretion upon motion for a new trial.” Owens-Corning v. Garrett, 343 Md. 500, 522 , 682 A.2d 1143, 1153 (1996) (citing Weissman v. Hokamp, 171 Md. 197, 201 , 188 A. 923, 925 (1937)).

Collectively, the evidence presented supports Mr. Saville’s periodic, i.e., regular, exposure to Scapa’s asbestos-containing dryer felts and respirable asbestos fibers emanating from their upkeep, thus it was sufficient to warrant jury consideration. The last prong of the Balbos test requires evidence of the proximity of the plaintiff, “in distance and in time,” to the use of the product. Balbos, 326 Md. at 210 , 604 A.2d at 460 . Scapa contends that Mr. Saville presented no evidence that he was in the proximity of position two on the No. 9 machine, which is where the asbestos-containing dryer felts ran.

Moreover, according to Scapa, Mr. Saville did not present evidence that positions one and two were in proximity to each other so that even if he was located in position one he would still be exposed to asbestos. The jury heard accounts of the size of the Eight and Nine Paper Machine Building from various witnesses, e.g., that is was the size of a city block, or a football field, or 150 yards, somewhere between three and five stories high, and 80 feet wide, while also hearing from Mr. Shoemaker that the broke hustlers worked in very close proximity, 10 to 30 feet away from one another. Therefore, while the (machine) building is very large, the work-site for each machine’s broke hustler, i.e., the dryer sections of the No. 8 and No. 9 machines, were in relative proximity. Consequently, even if the evidence did show, through the master cards, that Scapa’s asbestos-containing felts were only on the second section of the No. 9 machine, testimony from Scott Graham, in particular, indicated that the dryer cans upon which the felts ran were only a foot or a foot and a half apart.

There is no direct evidence in the record of the precise distance between sections one and two of Machine No. 9. There is direct evidence, however, that Scapa’s asbestos-containing dryer felts ran on section two of Machine No. 9 and circumstantial evidence that ⁵⁰⁹ Mr. Saville worked on Machine No. 9 primarily at section one. An inference may be reasonably drawn, therefore, about the proximity of Mr. Saville to the asbestos-containing dryer felt, which was on his machine, but in a different section. Scapa contends that this collective evidence on frequency, regularity, and proximity was legally insufficient to require submission of the negligence case to the jury.

Specifically, Scapa disagrees with the intermediate appellate court’s application of its prior case, Reiter v. ACandS, 179 Md.App. 645 , 947 A.2d 570 (2008), aff'd sub nom., Reiter v. Pneumo Abex, 417 Md. 57 , 8 A.3d 725 (2010) to the instant case implying that if we affirm we will be endorsing the previously disavowed theories of “market-share” or “fiber drift” liability. We disagree. In Reiter , the widows of three deceased former employees of Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s Sparrows Point facility appealed the decision of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City granting summary judgment in favor of Eaton Corporation, successor in interest to Cutler-Hammer, Inc, Pneumo Abex LLC, and Square D Company. The Court of Special Appeals and this Court affirmed that decision.

The Court of Special Appeals held that the evidence and inferences, in a favorable light to the widows, would not permit a reasonable jury to conclude that the decedents’ exposures to the companies’ products were a substantial contributing cause of decedents’ lung cancer. Reiter, 179 Md.App. at 662 , 947 A.2d at 580 . Specifically, relying on the requirements of the “frequency, regularity and proximity” test of Balbos , there was no evidence “identifying] the dust as having come from the wear of the crane brake linings,” and the main witness could not “identify the suppliers of any brake linings used in the slab yard.” Reiter, 179 Md.App. at 662-63 , 947 A.2d at 580 . As to one of the appellants, the intermediate appellate court noted that an inference on exposure “would be speculation at best ... without evidence linking his exposure to dust generated by the wear of Square D brake linings.” Reiter, 179 Md.App. at 665 , 947 A.2d at 582 .

The appellant’s problem ⁵¹⁰ in Reiter of linking a particular company’s asbestos-containing products to the work-site of a claimant persisted on appeal to this Court, where we affirmed summary judgment holding that: Petitioners’ evidence was sufficient to generate a jury issue on the question of whether (1) each decedent was exposed to asbestos dust at his workplace, and (2) Respondents manufactured some of the crane brake products used at the facility. We also conclude, however, that Petitioners’ evidence was insufficient to establish that any of the Respondents’ products were used at the specific site(s) where the Petitioners actually worked. Reiter v. Pneumo Abex, 417 Md. at 61 , 8 A.3d at 727-28 (concluding, for example, that “[e]vidence that some Square D products were used somewhere in the 480 acre tin mill does not establish that a Square-D product was on the crane that was in the 50 square feet where Mr. Reiter ‘actually worked.’ ”). In addition to satisfying Balbos , a plaintiff must link the defendant to the product.

See Reiter v. ACandS, 179 Md.App. at 665 , 947 A.2d at 582 (citing Lee v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 721 F.Supp. 89, 93 (1989)) (“Maryland courts apply traditional products liability law which requires the plaintiff to prove that the defendant manufactured the product which allegedly caused the injury.”). We affirm the intermediate appellate court’s judgment on the trial court’s rulings in the instant case, which is consistent with our recent decision in Reiter , quoted supra. There is more evidence in the instant case than there was in Reiter , that Scapa’s asbestos-containing dryer felt frequently ran on a machine for which Mr. Saville was responsible for a particular kind of maintenance because it was used daily, at least for the period of one year, in proximity to Mr. Saville’s workstation on the No. 9 machine, where he would periodically either directly handle the asbestos-containing felt or be exposed to dust emanating from the scraping and blowing clean-up procedures. The inferences that were found too speculative in Reiter do not arise in this case because of the amount of testimonial and circumstantial evidence placing the asbestos- ⁵¹¹ containing dryer felts within an arm’s length of Mr. Saville’s work-site.

At oral argument, before this Court, the parties were unsure whether the evidence of Mr. Saville’s exposure to Scapa’s asbestos-containing dryer felts was circumstantial or direct, a distinction that is immaterial because circumstantial evidence of exposure will suffice. See Saville II, 190 Md.App. at 345-46 , 988 A.2d at 1067 (concluding that “there is more than enough circumstantial evidence to conclude that [Mr. Saville] performed a significant amount of work on Scapa’s product.”); Balbos, 326 Md. at 210 , 604 A.2d at 460 (“Exposure, however, may be established circumstantially.”) (citing Roehling v. National Gypsum Co. Gold Bond Bldg. Products, 786 F.2d 1225, 1228 (4th Cir.1986)) (“The evidence, circumstantial as it may be, need only establish that [plaintiff] was in the same vicinity as witnesses who can identify the products causing the asbestos dust that all people in that area, not just the product handlers, inhaled.”); see also Lohrmann v. Pittsburgh Corning Corp., 782 F.2d 1156, 1162-63 (4th Cir.1986) (“To support a reasonable inference of substantial causation from circumstantial evidence, there must be evidence of exposure to a specific product on a regular basis over some extended period of time in proximity to where the plaintiff actually worked.”). Our holding on this sufficiency of evidence question is not as emphatically stated as the Court of Special Appeals’s holding because we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to survive the motions, but decline to state that the evidence “conclusively established” proximity as a matter of law.

C.f Saville II, 190 Md.App. at 346 , 988 A.2d at 1067 (“Unlike Reiter , the evidence in this case conclusively established that plaintiff worked in close proximity to Scapa’s asbestos-containing felt for a significant period of time, leaving him covered in dust.”). Nonetheless, the Court of Special Appeals did not err in affirming the denial of Petitioner’s motions for judgment and JNOV on Mr. Saville’s claims, nor did that court misapply or misinterpret the rigors of the Balbos test. ⁵¹² II. Procedural Issues with Cross-claims and Cross-Defendants Scapa asks this Court to reverse the holding of the Court of Special Appeals, which affirmed the trial court’s denial of Scapa’s JNOV motion on its cross-claims against settling Co-Defendants, Westinghouse, Asten, and Albany. Saville II, 190 Md.App. at 351 , 988 A.2d at 1070 .

The Court of Special Appeals held that Scapa did not comply with Md. Rule 2-532, requiring a motion for judgment prior to a motion for JNOV. The intermediate appellate court reasoned that because this Court’s opinion in GMC v. Seay, 388 Md. 341 , 879 A.2d 1049 (2005) requires strict compliance with Rule 2-532 and because Scapa did not prove that the stipulation entered into between the parties on the management of the cross-claims was an adequate substitute for a motion for judgment, the denial of the motion by the trial court would not be overturned. Saville II, 190 Md.App. at 350-51 , 988 A.2d at 1070 . The Court of Special Appeals noted that: “[ejven if appellants were able to navigate around that mandate [that GMC v. Seay, 388 Md. 341 , 879 A.2d 1049 (2005) requires strict compliance with Rule 2-532], they would have to demonstrate to our satisfaction that the rule’s two ‘fundamental purposes’ were met by other means.

The record before us does not support that contention.” Saville II, 190 Md.App. at 350 , 988 A.2d at 1070 . Notwithstanding clever phrasing on Scapa’s part, 8 this Court’s ⁵¹³ task on this issue is, again, to determine whether the trial court erred in not granting Scapa’s motion for JNOV on its cross-claims at the close of all the evidence. Before the Court of Special Appeals, Scapa argued that “the evidence against the cross-defendants proved that [Mr. Saville] had more exposure to the cross-defendants’ products than to Scapa’s products, and that the jury’s verdict [assessing liability against only Scapa and W & G] is therefore inconsistent and warrants a JNOV.” Saville II, 190 Md.App. at 347 , 988 A.2d at 1068 . We iterate the summation of the intermediate appellate court: We review the trial court’s decision to allow or deny judgment or JNOV to determine whether it was legally correct.

Judgment as a matter of law is appropriate if all evidence and inferences permit only one consideration. If there is any competent evidence, however slight, leading to support the plaintiffs right to recover, the case should be submitted to the jury. Saville II, 190 Md.App. at 343 , 988 A.2d at 1065-66 (internal citations omitted). The record indicates, and we have discussed supra, that there was sufficient evidence to deny Scapa’s motions for judgment and JNOV on Mr. Saville’s claims.

Additionally, a review of the record indicates that there was sufficient evidence, when viewed in a light most favorable to the non-moving cross-defendants, to submit the issue of cross-defendants’ liability to the jury. The trial judge’s comments, supra footnote 8, indicate that he considered the merits of Scapa’s JNOV motion, and ruled that there was sufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict that assessed no liability against the cross-defendants. Accordingly, we affirm that judgment. ⁵¹⁴ Scapa asserted cross-claims against all of the companies named in Mr. Saville’s original suit. On January 18, 2008, Scapa filed, and W & G adopted, a “Motion for the Court to Adjudicate Cross Claims in Non-Jury Cross Claims Proceeding” drawing the trial court’s attention to the tri-furcated trial conducted in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, noting that the procedure was not condemned on appeal.

See MCIC, Inc. v. Zenobia, 86 Md.App. 456, 484-93 , 587 A.2d 531, 545-47 (1991), rev’d in part on other grounds, Owens-Illinois, Inc. et al. v. Zenobia, 325 Md. 420 , 601 A.2d 633 (1992) (affirming the trial court’s ruling on cross-claims for contribution where the trial judge conducted a separate, non-jury cross-claims trial on liability and damages and relied chiefly on the trial record in granting all the cross-claims for contribution). Scapa argued in the motion that it intended to put on evidence in its case-in-chief against defendants who had previously settled with Mr. Saville: Westinghouse, Asten, Albany, Garlock, Inc., and Certainteed; as well as against the remaining non-settling co-defendant, W & G; and against defendants who were then in Bankruptcy, namely Celotex Asbestos Trust, Combustion Engineering Personal Injury Trust, Eagle Pitcher Industries Personal Injury Settlement Trust, H.K. Porter, Inc. Asbestos Trust, and Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust. Scapa argued that the evidence would prove their joint tort-feasor status under the Maryland Uniform Contribution Among Joint TortFeasors Act, Md. Code, (1973, 2006 Repl. Vol.) §§ 3-1401-09 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article (“Joint Tort-feasors Act”). 9 The record does not indicate that the trial judge expressly ruled on Scapa’s January 18th motion to adjudicate all cross-claim issues, of liability and damages, in a non-jury trial, but the trial judge did express reluctance at proceeding that way based on Md. Rule 2-325(e), which requires a jury trial as to all claims once elected by any party. 10 ⁵¹⁵ Scapa’s counsel argued that the cross-defendants had to be placed on the verdict sheet because if the jury found them to be liable for Mr. Saville’s injuries, then there would necessarily be a pro rata reduction of any judgment according to the Joint Tort-Feasors Act.

Scapa, Mr. Saville, and co-defendant W & G, agreed that the liability of the settling cross-defendants would have to be proven at trial because their releases with Mr. Saville had been executed without any admission of liability. The parties, however, did not agree on how to determine the cross-claim shares of any ultimate jury damage award. Ultimately, the parties resolved the impasse by stipulation, on January 23, 2008, stating: The Parties are going to stipulate that Asten, Albany, or [and] Westinghouse go on the verdict forms as potential shares. There will be no judgment from the pleadings on them.

Scapa will put into evidence with respect to those — we are going to truncate what we are going to offer to Your Honor. And it will be verified interrogatories about them and some documents, but that we won’t need to get into the issue of all these other coworker depositions. Scapa argues to this Court that the stipulation meant that in exchange for truncating its cross-claim evidence, Mr. Saville would refrain from moving for judgment at the close of Scapa’s case-in-chief on the cross-claims. The record indicates that the parties agreed that the shares of any awarded damages would be determined post-verdict by the court, with the assistance of counsel.

On January 24, 2008, Scapa presented the evidence on its cross-claims. It read into evidence: Answers to a Request for ⁵¹⁶ Admissions by Carl Saville; deposition testimony of Mr. Green, former Westvaco employee; interrogatory answers from Carl Saville, Westinghouse, Asten, and Albany; and Answers to a Request for Admissions from W & G. In addition, W & G admitted into evidence excerpts from deposition testimony of Mr. Jack Smith, a former W & G employee. At the close of evidence on the cross-claims, which was the close of all the evidence, the following exchange took place: [SCAPA’S COUNSEL]: Judge, we wanted to renew our motion— THE COURT: Yes. [SCAPA’S COUNSEL]: — motion and the testimony of our witnesses we believe shows that we should prevail, Judge. THE COURT: All right.

I’ll deny the motion for both parties for the same— [W & G’S COUNSEL]: And renew mine. THE COURT: Wallace & Gale motions. [SCAPA’S COUNSEL]: And we also have what we filed originally in the court— THE COURT: Yes, for the same reasons on the same grounds and you’ll reserve all those arguments for post-trial motions and anything else you may raise. Neither party has presented argument to this Court, on specifically which motions were being addressed in this exchange. From our own investigation of the record, we conclude that the motion being renewed is necessarily Scapa’s “Motion for Judgment at the close of Plaintiffs Evidence” filed on January 21, 2008.

Moreover, because the parties and the trial court had previously agreed that apportionment of damages amongst any liable cross-defendants would be determined post-verdict, the later instruction by the trial court to “reserve all those arguments” logically references those contentions on the cross-claim shares, not cross-claim liability. Scapa has told this Court that the stipulation restricted Mr. Saville from moving for judgment on the cross-claims, but did not assert that it was so restricted. Given that all the parties agreed to a liability determination by the jury, and a post- ⁵¹⁷ verdict determination of apportionment of damages, it does not appear that Scapa was precluded from moving for judgment on the cross-claims, and indeed it probably should have done so. Scapa, and W & G by adoption of Scapa’s motion, chose to bring cross-claims against certain co-defendants in Mr. Saville’s case.

When procedural rules, particularly Md. Rule 2-325 requiring a jury trial on all claims, threatened Scapa’s desired outcome, namely that the cross-defendants would share in its potential liability, it stipulated to a jury trial on liability and a post-verdict resolution of potential cross-claim shares of any damage award. When the cross-defendants were found to be not liable and Scapa and W & G were found liable, Scapa moved for JNOV on Mr. Saville’s claims, and in the alternative, Scapa moved for JNOV on the cross-claims. The motions were denied. The trial judge found that there was legally sufficient evidence supporting the verdict against Scapa.

Accordingly, the trial judge denied the motion for JNOV as to the cross-claims, not because of a procedural violation of Md. Rule 2-532, which requires moving for judgment prior to moving for JNOV, but because the trial judge did not find a logical way to disrupt the jury’s handling of the cross-claim evidence while upholding its treatment of Mr. Saville’s evidence. Thus, we decline to reverse the trial court’s ruling on Scapa’s motion for JNOV on its cross-claims.

III

Admissions As part of its case against the settling cross-defendants, Westinghouse, Albany and Asten, as well as co-defendant W & G, Scapa read into evidence answers to its request for admissions (“admissions”) served upon Mr. Saville. Before this Court, Scapa contends “that, if Mr. Saville’s evidence was sufficient to support a verdict against Scapa, then Scapa’s evidence against the cross-defendants required verdicts against the cross-defendants ... because the evidence presented in its case-in-chief on its cross-claims was uncontested and consisted almost entirely of admissions from Mr. Saville, particularly responses to formal requests for admissions.” ⁵¹⁸ The Court of Special Appeals held that the Mr. Saville’s admissions were “merely statements of fact” and the “jury was not bound to accept that evidence as conclusive of liability, and therefore [the jury] did not contradict itself when it found [Scapa and W & G] liable and the Cross-Defendants not liable.” Saville II, 190 Md.App. at 348 , 988 A.2d at 1068 (emphasis added). Scapa requests that this Court “correct the Court of Special Appeals and clarify that [Mr. Saville’s] Rule 2-424 admissions are, as provided for by the rule, ‘conclusively established.’ ” Scapa is mistaken in its understanding of the effect of party admissions on its burden as cross-plaintiff in its suit against the cross-defendants and co-defendant. Accordingly, on this very narrow question relating only to the legal effect of Md. Rule 2-424 admissions, we affirm.

Md. Rule 2-424 states in pertinent part: (a) Request for admission. A party may serve one or more written requests to any other party for the admission of ... (2) the truth of any relevant matters of fact set forth in the request. (d) Effect of admission.

Any matter admitted under this Rule is conclusively established unless the court on motion permits withdrawal or amendment. Md. Rule 2-424(a), (d) (emphasis added). This Court has held that admissions must be conclusively binding in order to achieve the purpose of the rule, which is “to eliminate the need to prove factual matters at trial which the adversary cannot fairly contest,” Murnan v. Joseph J. Hock, Inc., 274 Md. 528, 534 , 335 A.2d 104, 108 (1975), and to “avoid the necessity of preparation, and proof at the trial, of matters which either cannot be or are not disputed.” Mullan Co. v. International Corp., 220 Md. 248, 260 , 151 A.2d 906, 913 (1959) (footnote omitted). Scapa read into evidence approximately 40 selected excerpts from Mr. Saville’s admissions as part of its case alleging joint tort-feasor liability against the cross-defendants: Westing ⁵¹⁹ house, Asten, and Albany and co-defendant W & G. Examples of such admissions include: Both wet felts and dry felts were used during plaintiffs employment at the Westvaco paper mill.

Westinghouse turbines were used at the Westvaco paper mill during plaintiffs employment. Installation and removal of the insulation from the Westinghouse turbines during plaintiffs employment created dust which contained respirable asbestos fiber. Plaintiff was in the vicinity of workers installing and removing asbestos insulation materials from the Westinghouse turbines at the Westvaco paper mill. Plaintiff inhaled dust caused by the installation and removal of insulation materials from the Westinghouse turbines.

The plaintiff was never warned about hazards from the installation and removal of asbestos insulation from the Westinghouse turbines. There were no warnings on the Westinghouse turbines regarding the dangers of asbestos. Once a dryer felt was removed form its packaging, plaintiff could not identify the manufacturer of the dryer felt. Warnings were not placed on any dryer felts used at the Westvaco paper mill during the plaintiffs employment.

Plaintiff saw no warnings on any of the dryer felts used at the Westvaco paper mill during his employment. The admissions, including those not excerpted here, addressed Westinghouse and W & G by name, while alluding to the asbestos-containing dryer felts produced and provided to Westvaco paper mill by cross-defendants Asten and Albany. Additionally, Scapa asked about exposure to dust containing respirable asbestos fibers from the installation and removal of pipe insulation and from the preparation of asbestos cement insulation. Mr. Saville’s admissions established conclusively that he was exposed to dust from Westinghouse’s asbestos-containing product; however, whether that exposure was a substantial ⁵²⁰ cause of Mr. Saville’s injury was a question for the trier of fact.

This evidence differs from the evidence presented against Scapa, and additionally, fails to prove