Farley Metals, Inc. v. Barber Colman Co.

On April 26, 1985, an explosion occurred at Tool & Engineering Company, a metal automobile component manufacturer in the City of Chicago. Tool & Engineering is a wholly owned division of plaintiff Farley Metals, Inc. The explosion resulted in the deaths of three employees, injured others, and caused extensive property damage. During the summer after the explosion, plaintiff’s reconstruction manager removed certain artifacts 1 from the explosion and stored them with Industrial Storage Warehouse (Industrial) in Chicago.

Nearly two years later, on April 24, 1987, plaintiff sued numerous…