UM Grace Case

The government began the morning’s court proceedings by calling their next witness, Sergeant Chamberlain from Marysville, Ohio. Chamberlain worked for the O.M. Scott Company for 50 years and retired in 1999. He began working in 1949 as a bookkeeper, became purchasing manager in 1958 and later was promoted to director of purchasing around the late ’60s to early ’70s. His duties for the company included purchasing all the raw materials used in Scott products.

Chamberlain said O.M. Scott received vermiculite from W.R. Grace. O.M. Scott purchased South Carolina vermiculite at first, but then began purchasing Libby vermiculite because Grace told Scott they were shipping from Libby. “I had no choice in the matter because they were our sole source,” Chamberlain said. “We had no concern with the finished product. Our concern was with the environment of the product.”

Chamberlain explained that the vermiculite ore would arrive in hopper-cars at Scott facilities. The vermiculite was dropped through furnaces to expand it. “So there was this dust involved,” Chamberlain said. Scott expanded it so that it would absorb the active ingredients, Chamberlain said.

Chamberlain said he was “taken by surprise at the time” when he found out that the vermiculite contained asbestos.

The government entered several memos into evidence showing Scott’s concern about the amount of asbestos in the ore that came from Libby. The government’s evidence included a letter Chamberlain received from Henry A. Eschenbach, one of the Grace defendants, saying that “we are continually looking for ways to reduce the amount of this contaminant.”

David M. Bernick, defense attorney for Grace, spent the cross examination trying to reconstruct the history between Scott and Grace. Bernick entered several defense exhibits trying to prove that Scott’s ore had always come from Libby.

“So Grace from the very beginning … was supplying vermiculite from the Libby mine,” Bernick said several times.

“I was not aware of that,” Chamberlain said. “Everything that I was aware of came from South Carolina. I was only aware of South Carolina mines.”

–Kalie Tenenbaum (posted 10:45 a.m.)