92^nd General Meeting Presentation
Lessons Learned from the Ultimate Catastrophic Event
Victor Casada

The following remarks were delivered at the General Session of the 92nd General Meeting on May 13, 2024. It has been edited for content and phrasing.

INTRODUCTION: Victor Casada is a senior risk engineering consultant with Zurich North America and has been in the boiler and pressure vessel industry for 35 years. He has worked for several insurance companies and holds a National Board IS Commission. Casada spent 11 years in the U.S. Navy – two years enlisted, four as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, earning a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering, and five years as an officer.

His slide presentation can be found here.

MR. CASADA: Why do we perform inspections the way that we perform them? Why do we submit reports the way that we submit them? If at any time during your career, you've asked yourself the question: Why do we do things the way we do them, then stick around for the next 30 minutes?

That said, I do not consider this a technical presentation. If you like, we can refer to it as awareness. The only problem with that is that when you start getting up there at an age like mine, sometimes awareness will smack you upside the head when you least expect it. Consider the grocery store checkout line where the little boy standing in front of you suddenly, without warning, turns to me and says, "What's it like being really, really, really old?"

We can consider this a testimonial. In order to do that, I have to acknowledge that that little boy has a point. I recognize that the only time that I'll ever have a smoking hot body is during cremation. I get it.

This is a story with plot twists. It is a story with a surprising ending. It is a story that occurred about 20 years ago. It's a story with a main character, and this main character would call me when it was time for me to come into that particular facility. He would be the same person to escort me to the boiler room, through the boiler, and out of the plant – the same individual every time.

However, at some point after one of those visits, it happened – a catastrophic explosion. This person that I knew was killed. As you might imagine, I had a tremendous initial shock when learning of this. Still, at some point, when the initial shock waves began to subside a little bit, another thought began to enter my brain – a more ominous thought, a more foreboding thought, the unthinkable thought. Is it possible that during one of those visits, I missed something, and now my friend is dead?

That's a heck of a thing to have on your conscience, but I figured this unthinkable thought might get resolved because I assumed I would be asked to go in and perform an investigation. That's where the first plot twist of the story occurs. I was told, "You are going nowhere near that place."

It's the only time in my career I felt I was back in the military under a direct order. So now what? Time passes. At some point, the next plot twist occurs when I get a call from that plant. "We got these new boilers here that have never been looked at. When can you come in?"

Interestingly enough, I was given permission to return and get reestablished at this facility. The first visit was a very strange experience indeed – new equipment, met some new people. Not one word was said about the accident. Not one word was said about the individual who lost his life. It was as if nothing had happened.

More time passes until the next plot twist of the story occurs: the wrongful death lawsuit hits. I go from having spoken to absolutely no one about these tragic events to suddenly talking to lawyers. When you start talking to lawyers, there are certain things that you need to keep in mind. In my case, the following issue was critical.

A commissioned inspector, a Manufacturer's rep, and a third-party adjustor are examples of individuals who could be asked to testify as expert witnesses in a case like this. But make no mistake: I was not asked to testify as an expert witness. I was told that under threat of a subpoena, I would be testifying as a defendant.

In addition to the still unresolved, unthinkable thought, I am now also thinking there's a smoking gun, and it's got my name on it. So how do you proceed? In my case, the first order of business was the following: The first individual you should speak with in a situation like this is the attorney who works for the same organization you work for. The legal term for this individual is in-house counsel.

I don't know who called first. Was it in-house counsel or one of the plaintiff’s attorneys? But I do seem to recall having enough sense to lawyer up when talking to the other side. In the midst of this, my wife had a very important question: "Don't you need your own lawyer?"

I learned that I was not named individually in the legal action. Therefore, I decided not to hire an attorney, making my in-house counsel my primary point of contact. My in-house counsel hired two attorneys local to the jurisdiction where the legal action was filed. The four of us got together for a one-day-deposition-prep session.

What did we talk about for a day? We went through some role-playing and some potential sample questions. I remember very little about the details, but my legal team hammered home three points.

The first: Is it your job when testifying to make yourself look good? Is it your job while testifying to keep your organization from looking bad? The answer to these questions is “absolutely not.” Your only job as a witness is simply to get it over with. Many witnesses have screwed this up.

Point No. 2: When asked a yes-or-no question, you answer yes or no, not "yes, because" or "no, but." You allow opposing counsel to ask why if they want to know. You do not offer any extraneous testimony of any kind. Many witnesses screw this up. Fortunately, in my case, with my military training, I was probably much better suited to handle than most witnesses.

Point No. 3: This one was the most personal to me. Did my legal team, at any point during our time together, provide any reassurance regarding my culpability in the case? They did not. That further reinforced the notion that, indeed, there is a smoking gun, and it's got my name on it. One day of deposition prep. Two days of deposition testimony. What did we talk about for two days? I will get to that in a second, but of the hundreds and hundreds of questions that were asked and the hundreds and hundreds of responses that I provided, I remember very few details, with one exception.

One question stands out among the rest: Witnesses sometimes have difficulty handling irrelevant or repeated questions. The point is that opposing counsel cannot be bullied or intimidated, although many witnesses have tried. A friend of mine told me that he got so angry during his deposition that, at one point, he stood up and yelled, "You ask me this question one more time, and I'm out of here."

So what did we talk about for two days? By law, opposing counsel is allowed to ask questions pertaining to the background, training, and experience of witnesses and the procedures they follow in the performance of their duties. It just so happens that in my case, the opposing counsel had a copy of the insurance company’s field manual guide. I don't know how he got his hands on it, but back in those days, that document was somewhere between 150 and 200 pages. He literally went through that field manual guide page by page, in some cases paragraph by paragraph, in some cases sentence by sentence.

It was the middle of the second day before we even talked about the case. During all this intense, grueling interrogation, most human beings, including me, would wonder: Is everything going OK? Sometimes, that's a very difficult question to answer, but there are some hints that things may not be going so well for a witness.

The first of these is what I refer to as the “isn't it true that” question. You're asked a series of questions that begin with the phrase, "Isn't it true that." In general, it means that opposing counsel is not soliciting new information; it means they've already got something. If you're asked a lot of “isn't it true that” questions, that could mean things are not going well for you.

However, something worse than that is the case where someone else testified earlier and was asked the same questions but provided different answers. It’s not a good look for a witness if they are suddenly asked are you calling Mr. so-and-so a liar. The only thing worse than that is if, after several hours of testimony, you're suddenly asked, "Do you know what perjury is?"

But to explain the next plot twist of my story, I have to explain one more legal concept because there's a difference between testifying in a deposition and testifying at trial. At trial, you have a judge. And when your legal team makes an objection during a trial, you get an immediate ruling from the judge and move on.

In a deposition, there is no judge. When your legal team is going to object to a question, generally, they do it in one of two ways. First, they object simply to get the objection on the official record so that they can make the same objection during the trial, in which case they instruct the witness, "Go ahead and answer the question if you can."

But the other type of objection is more complicated because that's the one in which your legal team instructs you not to answer the question, throwing the ball onto the court of opposing counsel. What are they going to do about that? Sometimes, what they'll do is they do a legal process called certifying the question, which means that the questions that the witness refuses to answer are highlighted in the deposition transcript so that opposing counsel can decide and possibly get a hearing in front of a judge with those certified questions, possibly get a ruling from a judge compelling the witness to answer those certified questions. In which case, everybody gets back together for deposition round two.

But in a major plot twist of my story, none of the legal gymnastics I've been describing over the past few minutes was applicable in my case. In fact, I do not recall a single objection made by my legal team during two days of testimony. And considering that I was testifying in a wrongful death lawsuit as a defendant, I found that to be truly remarkable, but what does all that mean?

Well, to answer that question and to explain probably the final plot twist of my story, I have to go over one more legal concept because there is another very important difference between testifying at a deposition and testifying at a trial. Before the trial, your legal team is required by law to know what the other side has got in the way of evidence. If there's a smoking gun, your legal team is required to know in advance so that they can prepare for the defense at trial. It's called discovery.

However, the rules of discovery are different in a deposition. In fact, a deposition can be used as a mechanism for obtaining the evidence that is later subject to discovery at trial. Does that mean then that opposing counsel in my case spent two days feverishly looking for a smoking gun where none was to be found? Maybe so.

For two days, my in-house counsel observed everything but said nothing. When festivities ended and we started to part company, he did have some parting words: "Do not call me in two weeks asking for an update on the case. Do not call me in six weeks asking for an update on the case. If you're going to be testifying at trial, I will call you."

Twenty years later, I am still awaiting that phone call. In fact, to this day, I don't know if there was a trial. To this day, I don't know if my organization paid a settlement in the case. To this day, I don't know what caused that explosion. To this day, I don't know what got my friend killed, believe it or not. What I have learned is that there were multiple defendants in the case. Multiple organizations were sued, lending credence to the notion that no smoking gun was pointed in my direction despite opposing counsel's desperate efforts to find one.

At this point, a logical question is: Aren't you curious about those details? The answer is yes, and I've looked for them with very little success. But instead of dwelling upon those missing details, I tend to think a lot more about how that total experience has influenced how I conduct my business today.

Over the years, I've lost track of all the different jurisdictions that I've worked in, but I can tell you that every inspection that I performed and every report that I've submitted has been as an employee of an insurance company. It makes it easy for me to summarize how I conduct my business today using the following three words. I don't look at these three words as a simple phrase. I don't even look at them as a slogan. I look at these three words as a mission statement. It is a mission that requires action and, in some cases, extra effort on my part to execute the mission.

What do I mean by that? In the few minutes we have remaining, I'll go over a couple of examples. It just so happens that I'm an old geezer who, in some aspects of my life, has embraced technology. I subscribe to plenty of streaming services. I watch those streaming services on streaming devices. I also now have more rapid access than I've ever had to such items as the ASME Code, the NBIC, the boiler safety chapter of the jurisdictional statutes, as well as the boiler safety chapter of the jurisdictional administrative rules.

That, in combination, was something I learned a little while back called a Windows Snipping Tool, and I'm able to correspond with facilities more rapidly than ever on code issues. In fact, I'm in those four items that I just mentioned more now than at any time in my career, but I don't mean to imply codes all the time; that is absolutely not the case. But there is something I am in every day that is critical to the success of my mission.

It just so happens that the jurisdiction I work in has a public portal. The neatest thing about this public portal is that no password is required to access research. I frequently get phone calls from facilities asking routine administrative questions such as "Where's my certificate?" If they happen to be sitting in front of a computer, I can guide them step by step to the point where we pull up their invoice and find out that the invoice has not been paid. We can do these things without having to refer facilities or call myself an employee of the jurisdiction to resolve. And I think that's pretty neat.

But in order to succeed at my mission, there are roadblocks that I've had to overcome. One major roadblock is noteworthy right now. I have this on the screen for a couple of reasons. First, it reminds me of a time when I was a young manager for an insurance company. One day, out of the blue, this was back in the day before there were any data entry systems like this, and I got a phone call from an irate chief. "If your guy doesn't get his act together, I am going to yank his license."

What in the world was that all about? It was simply a routine administrative mistake made over and over and over again. I can tell you that I have screwed this up over and over and over again. And if you want to know how I could possibly screw this up as many times as I did and how I was able to finally not screw it up anymore, then see me after class. Hint:

It has everything to do with old age. But that's not the primary reason that this is on the screen. It is also important to discuss what opposing counsel does about something like this. Opposing counsel doesn't have to know anything about our business to potentially ask the question, "How can a first inspection also be a follow-up inspection?"

And opposing counsel, when they talk about the report – and it doesn't make any difference what type of thing it is; it could be a medical chart; it could be a police report, whatever it is – opposing counsel describes the reports in terms of four words: Complete, honest, accurate, truthful. In general, opposing counsel does not recognize administrative mistakes. The witness' administrative error is opposing counsel's false reporting. Remember, the “isn't it true that” question could be applied here. "Isn't it true that when you submitted this report, you were being untruthful?"

I'm going to leave you with one final thought that has absolutely nothing to do with technology but everything to do with good old-fashioned human relations. Now, this is just me; this is just the way that I'm wired, but I prefer that jurisdictional personnel in general and a chief, in particular, know just a little bit more about me than, well, he's an ugly, old, bald dude who works for some insurance company but I don't know which one it is.

And with that, I am out of time, and I thank you.