Clay v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp.
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
722 F.2d 1289 (6th Cir. 1984)
John Ed Clay and Curtis Bailey (plaintiffs) sued Johns-Manville and Raybestos-Manhattan (defendants) for asbestos-related injuries and sought to introduce the deposition of a company doctor, now deceased, from an earlier, unrelated asbestos case — testimony relevant to what the defendants knew about asbestos's dangers. The district court excluded the deposition as hearsay, reasoning the defendants in the earlier case weren't legally related to the defendants here and so couldn't count as predecessors in interest, and ruled for the defendants.
Whether, for purposes of the former testimony exception to the hearsay rule, an unrelated party can be considered a predecessor in interest.