A Civil Action (23 page)

Schlichtmann wanted to bring before a jury the employees who had committed those acts and the supervisors who had overseen them. He asked Cheeseman to produce for deposition the Woburn plant’s “most knowledgable person” concerning chemical use and waste-disposal practices. Cheeseman arrived at the appointed time, a Wednesday morning in the first week of March, with a man named Paul Shalline, head of safety and maintenance at the Woburn plant.

Schlichtmann learned from Shalline that he had worked at Grace for thirty years. He had only a trade school education but had risen, briefly, to the position of plant superintendent at Woburn. Then he’d been demoted. He was sixty years old and unprepossessing in manner and appearance. He replied to Schlichtmann’s questions in a slow and deliberate manner, often giving vague answers or claiming not to remember. He said he had been appointed “pollution control officer” at the Woburn plant, but when Schlichtmann asked when this appointment had occurred, Shalline replied, “I don’t remember.”

“What were your duties?” asked Schlichtmann.

“I would oversee disposal and discharge to the drains, be sure we weren’t polluting the air, and anything related to that field.”

“Do you know if chemicals were disposed in back of the building, on the land?”

“I don’t know that,” replied Shalline.

This puzzled Schlichtmann. Cheeseman had admitted in his response to interrogatories that “small amounts” of chemical waste had been poured “from time to time” on the ground behind the plant. Cheeseman had produced Shalline as the person most knowledgable about waste disposal, but now Shalline denied knowing anything.

Schlichtmann tried again, quoting almost verbatim from Cheeseman’s reply to the interrogatories. “From time to time, were waste materials disposed of by spilling them on the ground in the back of the plant?”

“If you know,” interrupted Cheeseman.

“I don’t know,” said Shalline.

“Was material from the degreaser in the machine shop disposed of by spreading it on the ground in back of the plant?”

“I’m not aware of that.”

“Was it the practice of the Woburn plant in the 1960s to dispose of waste material by spreading it on the ground in the rear of the plant?”

“If you know,” interjected Cheeseman again.

“I don’t know,” said Shalline. “I don’t know if it was an authorized procedure.”

“Could it have been an unauthorized procedure?”

“It could have been. Somebody could have done it without my seeing it.”

The deposition of Paul Shalline lasted two working days. By its end, after twelve hours of interrogation, Schlichtmann had gotten only denials and professions of ignorance from Shalline. The man claimed to know nothing about the six barrels of toxic waste that had been buried behind the plant and exhumed by order of the EPA. Schlichtmann believed that Shalline was lying to protect himself, or perhaps the company. He thought it would be just a matter of time until he exposed those lies.

In reply to Schlichtmann’s interrogatories, Cheeseman stated that TCE had been kept in the plant’s paint shop, where it was used to clean metal parts prior to painting. So Schlichtmann summoned the Grace painter for deposition.

The painter’s name was Thomas Barbas. Schlichtmann studied him from across the conference table. He was in his early forties, heavyset, his round face plump and smooth, his straight brown hair receding high on his brow. He wore an ill-fitting blue sports coat, tight around his shoulders and under his arms, on which he had buttoned all three buttons. He looked ill at ease in these clothes, much as Richard Aufiero had in his, as if they were the sort worn only on rare occasions, to church or to court. He sat erect and stolid in the chair next to Cheeseman, saying nothing and barely moving. Schlichtmann had the impression of a man who was not just nervous but frightened.

The stenographer swore Thomas Barbas in and Schlichtmann began by asking him his occupation.

“Buyer,” replied Barbas.

“You’re a buyer?” said Schlichtmann in surprise. He had asked Cheeseman to produce the painter. “How long have you been a buyer?”

“Since the beginning of the year.”

“Prior to that, what was your occupation?”

“Painter.”

“And how long had you been a painter?”

“Approximately twenty-two years,” said Barbas.

“Was there a reason why you changed your occupation from painter to buyer?” asked Schlichtmann.

“There was a job opening. I put in for it and I got it,” said Barbas.

Schlichtmann questioned Barbas about the details of his job as a painter. Barbas answered in monosyllables, in a soft, sometimes barely audible voice. He admitted that when he first started working at Grace in 1961, he had dumped used cleaning solvents into a drainage ditch behind the plant. “At the end of the work day, take the solvent out and dump it on the ground,” said Barbas. “We did like what we were supposed to do.”

So this was where Cheeseman had gotten his information. “How long did you do that?” asked Schlichtmann.

“I’d say maybe a couple of months.”

Barbas went on to say that he had stopped the practice after only two months. “It was my idea originally to put the used solvent and paint sludge in barrels and have them taken out legally. That was my recommendation to the boss.”

“Who was the boss?” asked Schlichtmann.

“Paul Shalline.”

“You told Mr. Shalline you didn’t think it was a good idea to dump it on the ground?”

“Right.”

“Why did you think it was a bad idea?”

Cheeseman objected to this question for the record. Under the rules governing depositions, all objections are preserved until the time of trial, when a judge is present to rule on the objection. Until then, a deponent is compelled to answer despite the objection, and Cheeseman indicated to Barbas that he should do so.

“I didn’t think it was a bad idea,” said Barbas. “I didn’t think it was hazardous.”

“Then why did you recommend having it hauled away?”

“After a while I thought it was a bad idea.”

“Why?”

Again Cheeseman objected for the record, but Barbas had to answer.

“That would be similar to taking gasoline and throwing it on the ground,” Barbas said. “It is not a good idea.”

Barbas claimed that Shalline had agreed with his recommendation, and thereafter the painter had emptied waste solvents into 55-gallon drums that were kept by the back door of the plant. Barbas said he did not know what had happened to the drums after they’d been filled with waste.

“Mr. Barbas,” said Schlichtmann, “did you at any time participate in disposing those drums of material into a pit in the rear of the plant?”

“No,” said Barbas.

“Never did?”

“No,” repeated Barbas.

“Did you witness it?”

“No.”

“Do you have any information or knowledge that such an incident took place?” asked Schlichtmann.

“Yeah, they dug those drums up, didn’t they?”

“Is that the only information you have?”

“I might have heard about something before, but I’m not sure,” said Barbas.

“Who did you hear about it from?”

“I don’t remember,” said Barbas.

“What’s your understanding as to what happened during that incident?”

“Well, now, I object,” interrupted Cheeseman. “He has indicated he didn’t see it, didn’t hear about it, and you’re asking him to describe it?”

“Uh-huh,” said Schlichtmann, who kept staring at Barbas and asked: “What do you know about the incident?”

Schlichtmann’s style—the intent stare, the rapid-fire questions, repeated again and again—annoyed Cheeseman. “Ignore the tone of voice and the way he’s leaning across the table and staring at you,” Cheeseman advised Barbas.

“I
am
leaning forward and staring at him,” said Schlichtmann without taking his eyes off Barbas. “I’ll lean backwards if it will make you more comfortable. I’ll stand on my head.”

Barbas seemed prepared for a battering, his head hunkered deep into his broad shoulders.

“What do you know?” Schlichtmann repeated.

“Just the things that we’ve heard about and read about in the paper—some barrels were buried,” Barbas said.

Schlichtmann asked Barbas if he’d ever talked to Paul Shalline about the pit.

“I told him I didn’t know anything about it,” replied Barbas. “I told him that my job was to put the waste in the barrels and it was the company’s responsibility to get rid of them legally, and that was it. That’s all I said to him.”

Schlichtmann could get nothing more out of Barbas, but he felt sure that Barbas knew much more. After the deposition, in the office that evening, Schlichtmann reflected on how very odd it was that Barbas should have gotten his first and only promotion just now, just before his deposition, after twenty-two years in the paint shop.

3

Three weeks later, on a Thursday morning in early April, the receiving clerk at the Grace plant, a man named Al Love, drove into Boston to have his deposition taken.

Love had already spent some time with Cheeseman, who had asked him a lot of questions about his job at the plant and told him what to expect at the deposition. Now, on their way down Milk Street to Schlichtmann’s office, Cheeseman had a few more words of advice to offer. “Schlichtmann is a flamboyant sort of guy,” Cheeseman said. “He can be very zealous and excitable. Just relax and don’t get angry with him. Try to stick to yes or no answers.”

In the conference room at Schlichtmann, Conway & Crowley, a short, stout man in a rumpled suit smiled pleasantly at Love and introduced himself as Kevin Conway. A few moments later, a man whom Love understood to be Schlichtmann, tall and angular, came into the room. He nodded brusquely to Love, and Love nodded back.

Love tried to follow Cheeseman’s instructions, answering Schlichtmann’s questions tersely, rarely speaking more than a few syllables. He told Schlichtmann he lived on Pine Street in east Woburn. He’d started working in the sheet metal department in 1961, six months after the plant had opened. Back then, before his promotion to receiving clerk, he had cleaned metal parts with a solvent he obtained from a drum in the paint shop.

“Did you ever see a name on the side of the drum?” asked Schlichtmann.

“Yes,” replied Love.

“What was the name?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“Did the drum indicate that it had trichloroethylene in it?”

“I don’t remember,” said Love.

Schlichtmann asked Love what he would do with the leftover solvent, and Love said he would take it back to the paint shop and pour it into a smaller container of waste. Had Love ever seen anyone dumping out these containers of waste solvent?

“Yes,” said Love.

“Where would they take it?”

“Backyard,” said Love in a low voice.

“What would they do in the backyard?”

“Dump it.”

“Where?” asked Schlichtmann quickly. “On the ground?”

“Yes.”

“And you saw that happen? You saw it happen on more than one occasion?”

“Yes,” said Love, who could see that Schlichtmann was leaning forward, looking intently at him. It was plain to Love that his answers excited Schlichtmann.

“How did you happen to see this?” Schlichtmann asked.

“On coffee break.”

“Who were those people you saw do it?”

“The names?” asked Love reluctantly.

“Yes, the names,” said Schlichtmann.

Love named Tom Barbas and Joe Meola, the plant’s maintenance man. Those two, he said, were the only ones he had seen.

“Where was it, the place where you have your coffee break?”

“In the field in the backyard,” replied Love. “I used to go out there and hit nine iron shots, golf balls.”

“Is that right? Enlightened employee policy at Grace.” Schlichtmann smiled broadly at Cheeseman. “Tell me exactly what you’d see them do. How did they empty this container?”

“Just tipped it over into a ditch.”

“What kind of ditch?”

“Just an open trench that led down to the back of the property, to a natural waterway, a brook, I think.”

Schlichtmann had Love draw a diagram of the Grace plant and mark the areas along the drainage ditch where he’d seen Barbas and Meola dumping material. Then he asked Love to mark the pit into which several drums of waste had been emptied. Love drew a square directly behind the plant.

“Was there more than one pit?”

Love said he recalled only one. It had been dug in 1974, during the construction of an addition to the main building. He and Tom Barbas had made jokes about it. “We referred to it as the ‘recreation area.’ That was supposed to be the ‘swimming pool.’ ” He said he had never seen anyone dump drums of waste into it, although after the lawsuit had been filed he’d heard employees joking about such things.

By then, it was nearly one o’clock. The deposition had gone on without a break for almost three hours. “Let’s take a two-minute break,” Schlichtmann said to Love, “and we may get you out of here for lunch.”

Schlichtmann stood and motioned for Conway to follow him out of the conference room.

Conway shut the door behind him. In the hallway they conferred in whispers. The deposition was about to end, but Schlichtmann had the feeling that he had left something undone. Love had been nervous at first, like the others before him, but Schlichtmann detected something else about the man—a poise, a sense of quiet self-confidence. Love had a rawboned, rangy build and he seemed like a man who could take care of himself. Barbas and Shalline might have difficulty lying effectively, but Schlichtmann thought that Love might have difficulty abandoning his self-respect enough to lie.

“What do you think?” Schlichtmann asked Conway.

Conway reflected for a moment. “He lives on Pine Street in east Woburn, just a couple of houses away from Anne Anderson. Why don’t you ask him about the water? Ask him about his family’s health.”

Back in the conference room, Schlichtmann said to Love: “You’ve lived in east Woburn for how many years, Mr. Love?”

“Nineteen.”

“And you have how many children?”

“Eight.”

Schlichtmann asked for their names and ages, and Love complied. “That’s quite a family,” Schlichtmann remarked. “You know what the water was like in east Woburn?”