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| Dexter Worker's CompensationBuy steno drill CDs at StenoDrills.com THE REFEREE: Good afternoon. MR. MONTONI: Good afternoon. THE REFEREE: Let's open the record. Any preliminary matters today? MR. COOPER: Your Honor I don't believe that my predecessor, attorney for the claimant, had made a submission at the first hearing; so therefore, I'm doing that now. THE REFEREE: Okay. Is the fee agreement attached here? MR. COOPER: Pardon me? THE REFEREE: Is there a fee agreement attached here? MR. COOPER: No. THE REFEREE: Let's mark this as Claimant's Exhibit 1. (At this time Claimant's Exhibit No. 1 was marked for identification.) THE REFEREE: Let's make a part of the record, C-1, the first hearing submission. This is a claim petition. Where are we at in this matter? The claimant testified on March S of 'g1. MR. COOPER: Yes, Your Honor. You have to excuse me a little bit. I am new to the firm and new to the file as of the last two months. So I'm a little hazy about the history, but I believe the claimant testified on March 8, 1991. MR. MONTONI: It is scheduled for March 18. THE REFEREE: I'm more concerned about your side of the case than I am the defendant's. It's your petition. When was this filed? MR. COOPER: I believe it may have been November of 1990. THE REFEREE: October 30 of 1990? MR. COOPER: As I say, Your Honor, I'm new to the firm and new to the file in the last two months; and I agree with you that there are things missing certainly. We're going to endeavor to get that done. We'll be arranging a deposition shortly, either the claimant's treating physician -- THE REFEREE: Who is that? MR. COOPER: Dr. John Constance. Or we may also have the claimant examined by a pulmonologist. THE REFEREE: I think it's a little late for that, isn't it, at this point in the game? MR. COOPER: I hope not, Your Honor. THE REFEREE: What's been going on for the last year and six months? MR. COOPER: As I say, I'm new to the firm. THE REFEREE: I appreciate your position, but that really doesn't mean anything to me. This is the case. It's your case. This is the way it's been. You have to tell me something. MR. COOPER: I believe that evidently probably my predecessors were waiting to see some clarification of the medical picture of the claimant. THE REFEREE: I think the continuances were all on your side; is that accurate? MR. COOPER: I believe so. THE REFEREE: Did I set any deadlines for the close of record of this matter? MR. MONTONI: No, you didn't. THE REFEREE: What else did you want to tell me today? Is there anything you plan to do today? MR. COOPER: I do have a witness here, Loretta Paulson, to testify for two purposes: No. 1, with regard to the notice issue, and No. 2, just to establish some of the levels of abnormally high levels of ammonia at the time of the incident. I believe the notice may no longer be an issue in the case. THE REFEREE: Is notice an issue? MR. MONTONI: No, it is not. MR. COOPER: I just wanted to have some brief testimony. THE REFEREE: You want to call your witness. You will get an interlocutory order setting deadlines for the close of the record. MR. MONTONI: Just for clarification, the claimant's first hearing submission, it's not been admitted; is that correct? THE REFEREE: It's made a part of the record. It's not an exhibit. MR. MONTONI: I'm just concerned that there are medical reports in there. THE REFEREE: If you'll read the first hearing order that comes with -- the petition indicates that the first hearing submission and the attachments are not, in the Referee's rules of procedure, are not entered into the record as evidence, but are made a part of the record to show what was shared with Counsel. MR. COOPER: Loretta Paulson. THE REFEREE: You are going to have to do the best you can to meet the deadlines that you are going to get in this case. MR. COOPER: I understand that. LORETTA PAULSON, WAS CALLED, AND HAVING BEEN DULY SWORN, WAS EXAMINED AND TESTIFIED AS FOLLOWS: DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. COOPER: Q. Is it Mrs. Paulson? A. Yes. Q. Mrs. Paulson, would you please give us your full name. A. Loretta Paulson. Q. Would you spell the last name. A. P-a-u-l-s-o-n. Q. Where do you live? A. R.D. 1, Box 422, Sugarloaf, Pennsylvania. Q. Are you currently employed? A. No, I'm not. Q. Just direct your attention to the date of the incident that is involved in these proceedings, that being July 24 -- July 23, 1990. At that time, were you employed? A. Yes, I was. Q. Who was that by? A. The Dexter Corporation. Q. In what capacity? What was your job description? A. Team leader. Q. Did you work with the claimant, Mary Wallace? A. Yes, I did. Q. Were you her team leader? A. Yes, I was. Q. In what area of the plant? A. The liquid-fill department. Q. Is that the liquid-fill area that was involved with ammonia? A. Ammonia, Purex, Trend, Sweetheart, and ammonia. Q. Now, prior to the time that we're speaking of, that being July 23, 1990, how long had you been working at Dexter plant? A. Okay. I started August 3, 1988. THE REFEREE: Excuse me one second. Let's go off the record. (At this time there was a short discussion held off the record.) THE REFEREE: Sorry for the interruption. Back on the record. BY MR. COOPER: A. I have a correction on that. I started in August. I don't know that it was exactly the third. It was somewhere toward the end of August, I imagine, but 1988. Q. When you started did you go to work in the liquid-fill area? A. No, I didn't. Q. When was it that you came to work in the liquid-fill area? A. Probably about -- I don't know for certain. I don't have the records. I don't remember. Probably about two or three months later when they started up the second shift there. Q. From the time you started working there, was the smell of ammonia always strong? A. Yes. Q. To direct your attention to July 23, 1990, and to Mary Wallace, did you notice anything unusual happen to her that night? A. If you're referring to the night that she got -- the night before she got sick, okay, that night the ammonia was very strong. I happened to come on the shift onto the -- into the line because I had other lines to take care of. I came over to her line, and I did state that it was very, very strong over here. "What is going on over here, Mary?" And she said, "Everything is a mess over here today." And I proceeded to help her try to straighten it out. Q. What kind of job was Ms. Wallace performing that put her in contact with ammonia? A. She was a line operator, which I think at a time there are probably about nine people on the line working; and you had a conveyor line. The back people would put empty bottles on, and they came down through a flame treatment and went into a filler that filled the bottles; and this was an enclosed area. It had glass around it. Q. Did you notice if she had any greater exposure that night to ammonia than prior nights when she was working there? A. It was much stronger that night. Q. Now, did she return to work after that day? A. The next night she called -- her son called in. Somebody called in. I presumed that was her son, but somebody called in and said, "Mary is in the hospital. She is in intensive care. She won't be in to work. I'll notify somebody tomorrow." Q. Did you alert any supervisors at the Dexter plant about the high levels of ammonia? A. The only one was Harold. I don't think I alerted them about the high level of ammonia because there wasn't anybody there to alert, except the supervisor; and he was new. Q. You're talking about July 23, 1990? A. That was the day before she got sick, yes. Q. Now, after the time she became sick, did you alert anyone to the levels of ammonia at the plant? A. Well, we complained about it continually. We always complained about it that it was high, that it smelled bad, that the filler needed to be repaired, that the bottles were bad and they leaked; and there was always an ammonia smell. And they said the filler was an old filler, and it couldn't be repaired. Q. And these complaints we are talking about are at a time prior to July 23, 1990? A. Yes. As long as we worked there, it was always a very strong odor with the ammonia. Q. Now, soon after July 23, 1990, did you and a supervisor or did you observe any supervisors conducting any tests of the level of ammonia? A. I did not. I worked second shift, and there usually wasn't anyone there. Q. Was there a -- was it a Mr. Astor? A. Harold Archer was our supervisor. He was not there -- he wasn't there very long at the time. He didn't do too much of anything. Q. Wasn't there a time when you -- A. There was a time after that, after Mary got sick, somebody else was on the line; and I went over to help them out, and the ammonia was very, very strong that day. And I called upstairs, and I asked Mr. Astor. I said, "Mike, would you come down here?" Q. Who is Mike Astor? A. Mike is the human resource person. And he said, "It sounds like I should come right down." And I said, "Yes, I think so." He came down and brought his tester down, and I said, "This is exactly the way this was -- the smell was the day before Mary sick." She got sick that day, but anyway the day before she went to the hospital. And he came down and checked the air, and he was checking on the opposite side of where she would have been. And I said, "I don't know what it smells like over there, Mike, but this is the side where it is really bad." And that would have been where Mary would have been working. And then he came over there, and by that time the air started to move, started clearing out; and he did say that it was high. Q. How many days or week after July 23 was this? A. I don't remember. I don't recall. There is no way I could say exactly when it was because I didn't make notes. I don't remember. Q. Would you say it was within a month? A. I can't say whether it was a month or six months. CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. MONTONI: Q. Mrs. Paulson, how long was Mary Wallace under your direct supervision? A. Probably from -- I would say just about from the time the line started up on second shift until she had gotten sick. Q. You have to give me a beginning date? A. I can't give you a date. I don't know. Q. Was it a year; less than a year? A. I don't know. I don't have the records of that. I would have to go through a lot of papers if I still have them. I've been out of the plant for almost a year now. Q. You described other job duties on lines that involve different products. How much time would she have been on the line that involved ammonia as opposed to the other lines? A. Well, we ran the other lines longer than the ammonia. Q. Can you give me a breakdown percentage-wise? A. Not really because sometimes we run them for a week, two weeks in a row, and then not for six months. Q. So it could have been that she was exposed to the ammonia line for two weeks and then not have any exposure for six months. A. But then she would have exposure to the other chemicals also, and the ammonia line was in the same room with the other detergent. So the day shift always ran the ammonia line; so there was always the smell there. Q. You kept saying that the ammonia smelled the strongest or the worst on July 23, 1990, but then you also said that it was always very strong and that you complained later on that it was very strong at different times after July 23, 1990. Can you quantify in any way why it was stronger on July 23, 1990, or how much stronger it was? A. Maybe because we hadn't run the machine for a while. Maybe that's why it was very strong on that day. The bottles always came through wet, and you always had wet bottles that had to be emptied. And when they were emptied, they were emptied outside the filler into a funnel. And when the bottles came down the line, they were always wet, so you always had the ammonia concentrate right there. Q. That is based on your observation. That is not based on any testing or numbers that you have? A. No. Because we didn't have the facility to test anything with. Q. It is my understanding she worked on July 23, 1990, and then got sick the next day. A. I don't know when she got sick. That's when her son called and told me she was in the hospital and in intensive care. Q. She didn't work after July 23? A. She did come back at another point. Q. Do you remember -- A. Okay. I don't remember if she came back or not after that. Like I said, I had too many other things to think about, and I don't have dates on things like that. MR. MONTONI: That's all I have. THE REFEREE: Is that all of the witness? MR. COOPER: Yes. THE REFEREE: Thank you. You may step down. Is that all for today? MR. MONTONI: Yes. THE REFEREE: Is that all for today? MR. COOPER: I don't know if I can make this request. I've never made this sort of request before. Perhaps I could get any documents reflecting any ammonia level testing done at the plant prior to July 23, 1990. MR. MONTONI: I'll provide you what records we have. THE REFEREE: Thank you very much. (At this time the hearing in the above-scheduled matter was concluded.) |
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