One Shipfitter · 1958–1962

Robert Eugene Hardick

A shipfitter keeps a warship's machinery honest: valves that seat, gaskets that hold, steam that stays in its pipes. Robert Eugene Hardick did that work aboard Newport News from 1958 to 1962 — one documented working life, standing here for the trades.

What the record says

Hardick served in the United States Navy from 1957 to 1976, aboard several vessels in domestic and foreign ports. As the Supreme Court of Virginia recited it in John Crane, Inc. v. Hardick, from 1958 to 1962, Hardick worked as a shipfitter and reported for duty upon the USS Newport News, the USS Tutuila, and the USS Wrangell. As a shipfitter, Hardick repaired and replaced valves and gaskets. The valves and gaskets Hardick repaired contained asbestos.

Aboard Newport News he remembered, among his routine duties, one journey to Guantanamo Bay. His working years moved with the Navy's fleet — after 1962 he schooled as a machinery repairman and served aboard Everglades, Bordelon, and Detroit, then as master-at-arms aboard Yellowstone and a race-relations specialist aboard Canopus until 1976.

Deck log remarks sheet for USS Newport News (CA-148), Monday 11 May 1959, recording the Engineer Officer's drydock inspection of the underwater hull — propellers, shaft fairwater, strut bearings, rudder plating, and hull zincs — signed by the officer of the deck and approved by the commanding officer — The ship's own paperwork, 11 May 1959 — within Hardick's years aboard. In drydock that day, the log records the Engineer Officer's inspection of her underwater body: a missing propeller cap, a torn shaft fairwater, pin holes in the rudder plating, no zincs on the strut arms. Signed by the officer of the deck; approved by the commanding officer. This is the material world a shipfitter maintained. U.S. Navy deck log, National Archives NND 927605, public domain.

What the years did

In February 2007, Hardick was diagnosed with mesothelioma; he died in March 2009, before his case could be tried — his deposition testimony was presented to the jury by video. His widow, Margaret Diane Hardick, carried the action forward as executor of his estate. A Newport News jury returned a verdict of $5,977,482, apportioning fault evenly between two gasket and packing manufacturers: John Crane, Inc. and Garlock.

On appeal, the Supreme Court of Virginia vacated the nonpecuniary awards under the Death on the High Seas Act — then, on rehearing 14 September 2012, reinstated the jury's $2 million award for Hardick's pre-death pain and suffering under general maritime law, while vacating the $1.15 million loss-of-society award. The case stands in the reports as John Crane, Inc. v. Hardick, 283 Va. 358 (2012).

It also stands for its limits. The tried evidence spanned a career of ships — Newport News among them, but not alone — and the verdict does not isolate exposure aboard this hull, quantify material aboard her, or establish anything for any other person. It is one man's proven history, and it is told here as exactly that.

Sources: John Crane, Inc. v. Hardick, Record No. 101909, opinion of 2 March 2012 and rehearing opinion of 14 September 2012 (official Virginia courts PDF) · the associated evidence record · NARA deck log NND 927605.

The evidence record

The documented evidence record for this hull — the litigation rows above, the searches that found nothing, and the limits of what the record can say — is maintained in the USS Newport News vessel evidence record at Asbestos Atlas, a dataset published by this site's publisher.