IDENTIFICATION OF KEY WITNESSES FROM HISTORICAL PHOTO

Client:  A Building Products Manufacturer

We were asked to identify witnesses who had observed the plaintiff and his co-workers using a particular brand and type of modeling plaster between 1962 and 1969 who could testify to the frequency of the use of that material and the amount of plaster rendered airborne during use. We made a personal visit to plaintiff’s former workplace, inspected the facility, and interviewed plaintiff’s former employer. He had been working at the subject facility for more than 50 years and was about to retire.

Plaintiff’s former employer persistently claimed that he could not recall the names of his former employees circa 1962-1969. However, while interviewing plaintiff’s former employer and inspecting the facility, we found (and photographed) a large captioned picture of the facility’s employees dated 2004 hanging in the employer's office.

We subsequently located and interviewed 8 of the people listed in the photo caption. Their testimony severely limited the amount of airborne exposure to our client’s product. And, our client obtained a dismissal.

Client: A San Francisco Property Owner

We were notified that an SF Tenant claiming rent control protection had changed his phone number on the building intercom entry system to an Oregon cell phone. Our investigation revealed that the SF Tenant and his wife were the owner-occupants of a single family residence in Oregon. We also determined that they had recently re-registered and voted in Oregon using their Oregon address, that they had recently registered their vehicles and obtained Oregon driver’s licenses at their Oregon address, and that they were employed full time in Oregon within reasonable commute distance of their Oregon residence.

When confronted with the evidence, the SF Tenants voluntarily surrendered possession of their rent controlled San Francisco apartment which was subsequently re-rented at the market price.

Client: An Automobile Manufacturer

Plaintiff alleged that he contracted Mesothelioma from a variety of sources during his lifetime including employment as the owner/operator of an automotive repair business, and repair of personal and family vehicles.

Our investigation revealed that Plaintiff had been convicted of soliciting an undercover police officer to perform a murder for hire about 23 years prior to the filing of his asbestos injury claim.

After a lengthy search, we located and interviewed the undercover police officer who had stung the Plaintiff back in the early 1980s. The Officer specifically recalled pretending to be a hit man and having Plaintiff try to hire him to kill Plaintiff’s daughter’s boyfriend.

Plaintiff agreed to pay the Officer a total of $400 to kill the boyfriend. The Officer reminisced: “Murder was cheap back then. You could hire a junkie to kill someone for $50 bucks”.

Plaintiff wanted the Officer to make the murder look like a motor vehicle accident. Said the Officer, “I was supposed to force the boyfriend off the side of a road and off of a cliff”. Plaintiff then made a $200 cash down payment and the Officer arrested him.

After his arrest, Plaintiff claimed that he was innocent until he found out that the Officer had tape recorded their discussion about the proposed murder. Said the Officer, “Plaintiff denied the allegations to his family and the Judge until we played the tape in court”.

In response to our client’s motion that the Court take judicial notice of the subject murder for hire conviction, the Plaintiff got his conviction expunged; and Plaintiff’s counsel got the subject murder for hire conviction excluded from consideration as evidence in his asbestos injury case. However, we are informed that if Plaintiff had chosen to testify and his character or veracity was called into question, the judge would have allowed evidence on Plaintiff’s 23 year old murder for hire conviction.

Not wanting the jury to hear that Plaintiff had solicited the murder of his daughter’s boyfriend because the boyfriend was black and Plaintiff's daughter is white, Plaintiff subsequently dismissed his claims against our Client.