Mining eBay for Asbestos Exhibits

Houston plaintiffs' lawyer W. Mark Lanier has been on an eBay binge lately, buying industrial manuals, magazine advertisements, ashtrays, floor tiles, roof shingles, a sealed pack of Kent cigarettes from the 1950s, fire-protection cloth and even spray-on artificial snow for making a humdrum Christmas tree more festive.

Mr. Lanier is not a shopaholic ' all the items he has won on the online auction Web site either contain asbestos or information about it. His purchases become evidence for his docket of asbestos cases, discovery he freely shares with other plaintiffs' lawyers who represent people who allege they were injured through exposure to asbestos.

The hunt on eBay for asbestos-related goods makes Lanier identify with Perry Mason, the crafty fictional criminal defense attorney.

'It is, in a sense, taking us back to an earlier time, taking us back to Perry Mason, where the lawyer goes out and investigates,' says Lanier, of the 12-lawyer Lanier Law Firm in Houston.

Mr. Lanier says he has won more than 313 eBay auctions ' many of them asbestos-related ' since he started bidding on items in 1999.

'If I know I'm going to be around, I'll snipe. I wait 'til the last minute,' he says, explaining his bidding method. 'If I'm not going to be around, I'll put on an astronomical bid.'

His running tab exceeds $75,000, and about 10 items went for five-figure bids, he adds.

Lanier, 42, says he started buying evidentiary items on eBay when working on a benzene suit. He bought some 1940s medical books and a 1939 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica in his effort to determine what a defendant in the suit allegedly knew about the hazards of benzene.

For curiosity's sake, Lanier says he typed in the word 'asbestos' on eBay's search engine and pulled up auctions for some magazine advertisements and some products containing asbestos. His obsession began that day.

He has amassed a collection that he displays on shelves in the conference room at his firm's offices in a former bank building in northwest Houston. He concedes he is thinking intimidation when displaying his goodies in the conference room where defense lawyers come for depositions. Framed advertisements for asbestos products line hallways at the office.

Lanier says he has the items tested for asbestos content and then encases them in plastic so he can safely bring them into courtrooms and let jurors handle them. He says he gets requests from lawyers across the country who want to borrow his items for their trials.

'I'm like the lender library,' says Lanier, adding he is usually willing to let fellow plaintiffs' lawyers use items in his collection for trial evidence.

But there is one report Lanier keeps all to himself. It is so valuable that he keeps it in a safety deposit box, and believes he got a real bargain at $3,500 (he was willing to bid $25,000).

Lanier says he bought a draft copy of a legendary study done in 1958 by researchers Daniel Braun and David Truan for the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association (QAMA). They allegedly concluded in the report there was no cancer risk associated with exposure to asbestos.

But, Lanier says, they allegedly reached the opposite conclusion in the draft report, which was circulated among the industry for editing in 63 restricted copies.

Lanier says he bought Restricted Copy No. 7 on eBay from a mysterious seller in Quebec. Lanier says the seller lists about 10 asbestos products each month on eBay, and he has rebuffed attempts to contact him directly.

'This is the Holy Grail in the asbestos literature. It's like finding Matthew's original Gospel or Paul's letters to the Corinthians,' Mr. Lanier says.

He speculates the seller in Quebec either obtains materials out of libraries or he or a relative once worked for the QAMA.

Mr. Lanier says he used Restricted Copy No. 7 in three trials and another 10 times in discovery.

'What I have done is presented it to the jury, shown it to the court. … It definitely heightens the aura of secrecy,' he says.

'It's significant,' says David Egilman, a professor at Brown University in Providence, RI, and an expert witness in asbestos litigation. 'It's a key piece of evidence in the conspiracy case against the asbestos manufacturers.'

Lanier says a lot of asbestos items do not come as cheaply as they once did on eBay. He now finds himself bidding not only against other plaintiffs' lawyers, but also defense attorneys. He says he once had to pay a couple of thousand dollars for a General Electric Co. parts manual to outbid a lawyer representing GE.

And in December, Lanier says he paid more than $5,000 to win a 30 year-old maintenance manual he is using as evidence in an asbestos suit that went to trial last month.

He was surprised bidding went so high for the manual, which he initially thought a $1,000 bid would win. After he was outbid more than once, he substantially upped the ante.

Lanier does not know who was outbidding him ' buyers and sellers use anonymous names on eBay ' but he speculates it could be a defense attorney.

'I'd hate to be the defense lawyer bidding against Mark Lanier,' says Robert Thackston, who does asbestos defense.

Thackston, a shareholder in Jenkens & Gilchrist in Dallas, says he does not know of any defense lawyers routinely seeking asbestos items on eBay, although he has heard that some asbestos goods are sold there.

Egilman, who has bought a few asbestos items on eBay over the past three or four years, including a flag that he believes once hung outside an asbestos plant in Canada, says the online auction site is a source for some of the documents he posts on his Web site. He says it is making it more difficult for corporate defendants to keep information private.

Fred Baron, a partner in Dallas' Baron & Budd who has been doing asbestos litigation for three decades, says Lanier has a 'great collection' but he is not, like Lanier, using eBay to get trial exhibits.

'Lanier's turned it into a hobby,' says Baron, former president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

$115 Million Verdict

Lanier has had success with asbestos suits. In 1998, he won a $115 million verdict for 21 plaintiffs.

A devoted buyer, Lanier has not sold a single item on eBay. His purchases are getting so out of hand, he says he may have to build a storage shed at his house.

In addition to the asbestos-related items, Lanier says he has bought from eBay at least 100 books written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin; a bulldozer for his 20-acre estate; a 1953 flatbed truck from a beet farmer in Minnesota; and a pristine 1957 Ford T-bird, which he gave away.

'eBay is a dreamer's supermarket that comes to your house 24/7,' he says.

Brenda Sapino Jeffreys is a reporter for the Texas Lawyer.

Houston plaintiffs' lawyer W. Mark Lanier has been on an eBay binge lately, buying industrial manuals, magazine advertisements, ashtrays, floor tiles, roof shingles, a sealed pack of Kent cigarettes from the 1950s, fire-protection cloth and even spray-on artificial snow for making a humdrum Christmas tree more festive.

Mr. Lanier is not a shopaholic ' all the items he has won on the online auction Web site either contain asbestos or information about it. His purchases become evidence for his docket of asbestos cases, discovery he freely shares with other plaintiffs' lawyers who represent people who allege they were injured through exposure to asbestos.

The hunt on eBay for asbestos-related goods makes Lanier identify with Perry Mason, the crafty fictional criminal defense attorney.

'It is, in a sense, taking us back to an earlier time, taking us back to Perry Mason, where the lawyer goes out and investigates,' says Lanier, of the 12-lawyer Lanier Law Firm in Houston.

Mr. Lanier says he has won more than 313 eBay auctions ' many of them asbestos-related ' since he started bidding on items in 1999.

'If I know I'm going to be around, I'll snipe. I wait 'til the last minute,' he says, explaining his bidding method. 'If I'm not going to be around, I'll put on an astronomical bid.'

His running tab exceeds $75,000, and about 10 items went for five-figure bids, he adds.

Lanier, 42, says he started buying evidentiary items on eBay when working on a benzene suit. He bought some 1940s medical books and a 1939 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica in his effort to determine what a defendant in the suit allegedly knew about the hazards of benzene.

For curiosity's sake, Lanier says he typed in the word 'asbestos' on eBay's search engine and pulled up auctions for some magazine advertisements and some products containing asbestos. His obsession began that day.

He has amassed a collection that he displays on shelves in the conference room at his firm's offices in a former bank building in northwest Houston. He concedes he is thinking intimidation when displaying his goodies in the conference room where defense lawyers come for depositions. Framed advertisements for asbestos products line hallways at the office.

Lanier says he has the items tested for asbestos content and then encases them in plastic so he can safely bring them into courtrooms and let jurors handle them. He says he gets requests from lawyers across the country who want to borrow his items for their trials.

'I'm like the lender library,' says Lanier, adding he is usually willing to let fellow plaintiffs' lawyers use items in his collection for trial evidence.

But there is one report Lanier keeps all to himself. It is so valuable that he keeps it in a safety deposit box, and believes he got a real bargain at $3,500 (he was willing to bid $25,000).

Lanier says he bought a draft copy of a legendary study done in 1958 by researchers Daniel Braun and David Truan for the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association (QAMA). They allegedly concluded in the report there was no cancer risk associated with exposure to asbestos.

But, Lanier says, they allegedly reached the opposite conclusion in the draft report, which was circulated among the industry for editing in 63 restricted copies.

Lanier says he bought Restricted Copy No. 7 on eBay from a mysterious seller in Quebec. Lanier says the seller lists about 10 asbestos products each month on eBay, and he has rebuffed attempts to contact him directly.

'This is the Holy Grail in the asbestos literature. It's like finding Matthew's original Gospel or Paul's letters to the Corinthians,' Mr. Lanier says.

He speculates the seller in Quebec either obtains materials out of libraries or he or a relative once worked for the QAMA.

Mr. Lanier says he used Restricted Copy No. 7 in three trials and another 10 times in discovery.

'What I have done is presented it to the jury, shown it to the court. … It definitely heightens the aura of secrecy,' he says.

'It's significant,' says David Egilman, a professor at Brown University in Providence, RI, and an expert witness in asbestos litigation. 'It's a key piece of evidence in the conspiracy case against the asbestos manufacturers.'

Lanier says a lot of asbestos items do not come as cheaply as they once did on eBay. He now finds himself bidding not only against other plaintiffs' lawyers, but also defense attorneys. He says he once had to pay a couple of thousand dollars for a General Electric Co. parts manual to outbid a lawyer representing GE.

And in December, Lanier says he paid more than $5,000 to win a 30 year-old maintenance manual he is using as evidence in an asbestos suit that went to trial last month.

He was surprised bidding went so high for the manual, which he initially thought a $1,000 bid would win. After he was outbid more than once, he substantially upped the ante.

Lanier does not know who was outbidding him ' buyers and sellers use anonymous names on eBay ' but he speculates it could be a defense attorney.

'I'd hate to be the defense lawyer bidding against Mark Lanier,' says Robert Thackston, who does asbestos defense.

Thackston, a shareholder in Jenkens & Gilchrist in Dallas, says he does not know of any defense lawyers routinely seeking asbestos items on eBay, although he has heard that some asbestos goods are sold there.

Egilman, who has bought a few asbestos items on eBay over the past three or four years, including a flag that he believes once hung outside an asbestos plant in Canada, says the online auction site is a source for some of the documents he posts on his Web site. He says it is making it more difficult for corporate defendants to keep information private.

Fred Baron, a partner in Dallas' Baron & Budd who has been doing asbestos litigation for three decades, says Lanier has a 'great collection' but he is not, like Lanier, using eBay to get trial exhibits.

'Lanier's turned it into a hobby,' says Baron, former president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

$115 Million Verdict

Lanier has had success with asbestos suits. In 1998, he won a $115 million verdict for 21 plaintiffs.

A devoted buyer, Lanier has not sold a single item on eBay. His purchases are getting so out of hand, he says he may have to build a storage shed at his house.

In addition to the asbestos-related items, Lanier says he has bought from eBay at least 100 books written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin; a bulldozer for his 20-acre estate; a 1953 flatbed truck from a beet farmer in Minnesota; and a pristine 1957 Ford T-bird, which he gave away.

'eBay is a dreamer's supermarket that comes to your house 24/7,' he says.

Brenda Sapino Jeffreys is a reporter for the Texas Lawyer.