Florida Power & Light Company. Photo: Youtube

A Florida appeals court has dismissed a petition from Florida Power & Light Co. in a lawsuit over the company’s alleged noncompliance with asbestos regulations.

The Third District Court of Appeal dismissed FPL’s appeal in a premises liability and negligence suit brought against the company in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.

The plaintiff, Larry Cook, has alleged FPL and other businesses named in his 2017 complaint are liable for his terminal lung cancer. His suit purports Cook’s condition was caused in part by exposure to asbestos while working on premises owned or controlled by FPL from the 1960s through 1980s.

FPL appealed to the Third DCA after a lower court denied its two motions for protective orders against depositions. As noted by the appellate court, the plaintiff sought testimony from an FPL corporate representative who could detail the company’s history and interactions with asbestos-containing products, as well as its adherence to occupational health and safety laws.

“FPL moved for protective orders from each notice and in support, submitted an affidavit prepared by its senior attorney, stating that compliance and production would require FPL to expend significant time, be voluminous and would cost millions of dollars,” the opinion said.

The appellate panel denied FPL’s petition after determining the court did not have jurisdiction in the matter as the company would not suffer irreparable harm by complying with the orders.

Read the opinion:

“As the trial court expressly instructed, FPL is required only to designate a corporate representative who is able to testify about matters known or reasonably available to the organization,” the opinion said. “Although FPL may have meritorious arguments in favor of a protective order at some later time in the litigation when the record is more developed, the record before us does not reflect that the orders under review amount to to irreparable harm.”

FPL’s outside counsel, Palm Beach Gardens lawyer Charles Schlumberger, told the Daily Business Review he was no longer on the case following his March retirement and declined to comment further. FPL’s in-house counsel, Joseph Ianno Jr. and Kevin Ivan Christopher Donaldson, did not return press inquiries by deadline.

Cook is being represented by Ferraro Law Firm attorneys Mathew Daniel Gutierrez and Juan Bauta, who said he was “very happy” with the Third DCA’s ruling.

“The takeaway is that the law requires companies to give discovery,” said Bauta, a Miami-based litigator. “They can’t just sit back and say, ‘It’s too expensive so we’re not going to look into this stuff.’ ”

Bauta said even if FPL doesn’t employ anyone who worked contemporaneously with Cook, the the company has a responsibility to present someone who can testify about the plaintiff’s work conditions.

“ Our argument was it’s hard to believe the operators of a nuclear power plant are that disorganized, and if they are, God help us,” Bauta said. “If they really have no organization to their documents … that’s kind of a scary proposition.”

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