Clow Valve’s civil suit against Chevron USA, Diamond Oil Company and Oskaloosa Gas and Oil is now in its second week. Clow contends the defendants breached contracts and warranties, acted fraudulently, participated in fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation, were negligent and are guilty of strict liability.

The heart of Clow’s lawsuit is the contention the defendants provided a product — Chevron food machinery extreme pressure grease — that caused corrosion of upper valve stems used in Medallion and F2500 fire hydrants produced between July 2002 and July 2004. Clow contends the Chevron FM extreme pressure grease used to protect the stem contained calcium acetate and absorbed water, allowing the moisture to come in contact with the metal.

Clow filed the suit in June 2006 and two months later instituted a valve stem, grease and o-ring change out program. According to Clow, the company has spent between $6 and $7 million to change out valve stems in some 55,000 fire hydrants, out of 113,340 fire hydrants sold.

The second week of the trial commenced Tuesday as the 11-member, three alternate jury listened and watched a five-hour videotape deposition by plaintiff witness Carl Ward. The trail is being held at the Mahaska County Courthouse and Monroe County Judge Annette Scieszinski is presiding.

Wednesday morning, plaintiff witness Dr. Angeline Cardis testified. Wednesday afternoon, plaintiff attorneys called two Clow Valve employees as witnesses: Peter Settini and Chad Harbour.

Settini testified he has extensive experience with fire hydrants and has taught and performed fire hydrant maintenance while working for various employers. Settini estimated he has worked on thousands of hydrants the past 15 years.

Clow hired Settini in 2005 and he is in charge of the outside sales force where he works with and trains the outside salespeople and promotes Clow products.

He told plaintiff attorney William Miller that Clow Valve has had complaints.

“Yeah, we’ve had complaints,” Settini said. “It’s very important to us to make sure every one of our products works.”

Settini said he has seen a black corrosion on the valve stems and a lack of threads on the top of the stems sent back to Clow. The black corrosion was something he had never seen before.

Settini said he tells customers they should regrease fire hydrants every six months.

Under cross-examination by defendant’s attorney Jason Palmer, Settini said he was not aware of any Clow documents that told end users they should regrease twice a year.

After Palmer produced a color photo of a Clow fire hydrant with the top off showing standing water in the lubrication chamber, he asked Settini if he had ever seen that before.

“No, I’ve never seen that,” Settini replied. Minutes later Settini told Palmer he has seen moisture or droplets of water in the lubrication reservoir.

Harbour came to Clow in August 2004 and is the engineer in charge of the change out program. He said he attended several meetings that dealt with the corrosion issue.