(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the proceedings.)
STATEMENT OF FACTS
A. The Complaint and Universal’s Separate Statement
Plaintiffs’ complaint filed August 24, 2007, alleges causes of action for personal injuries (survivorship), wrongful death, negligence, breach of implied warranty, strict liability ( consumer expectation and failure-to-warn defects), fraud and conspiracy, alternative-enterprise and concert-of-action liability, and premises liability against several defendants, including Universal. In their complaint, plaintiffs allege, among other things, that decedent Tina Gomez was exposed to asbestos taken from the premises of the West Facility on the person of David Plaza from 1981 through 1983. Universal is a defendant in 26 of the complaint’s causes of action including, among others, fraud, conspiracy-to-defraud and concert-of-action.
Nowhere in Universal’s moving papers does it show that it ever propounded any comprehensive discovery seeking all of plaintiffs’ facts, witnesses and evidence in support of each cause of action. Nor does Universal in its motion show that plaintiffs served factually devoid responses to any such discovery. [Id.]
Plaintiffs’ conspiracy-to-defraud and concert-of-action claims allege that: all products defendants (including Universal) acted as one another’s agents; knew of the health hazards stemming from human exposure to asbestos as early as 1924; suppressed and misstated the information when there was a duty to disclose and warn of those hazards; and, as a result, Tina Gomez was exposed to the asbestos that caused the mesothelioma that killed her. Those causes of action allege liability upon proof of Ms. Gomez’s exposure to asbestos from any source (and not necessarily from a Universal product). [Id.]
Nowhere in its moving papers does Universal address, let alone negate, the complaint’s fraud, concert-of-action or conspiracy-to-defraud claims, or that Universal sought in discovery all of plaintiffs’ evidence supporting those claims and received only factually devoid responses. (SeePart 3 of 14.)
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.