Frederick M. Hueston, PhD  

Stone Care Consultant 

IT’s time for the stone detective to get on his high horse again and talk about our legal system. I’m sorry if I offend any attorneys out there but it’s just my opinion. So, here goes.        

I was called by a local importer of slate tiles to come take a look at several containers of slate he imported from India. Apparently he ordered what is called gauged slate. Let me explain what gauged means. Gauged is simply a uniform thickness. 

In this case, the importer claims that he ordered gauged slate and got slate ranging in all different thicknesses. He was filing a lawsuit against the export agent and needed an expert to verify that he was correct. Sounded simple enough to me, so I thought. I told him I could fly out there next week and take a look.

I arrived at the importer facility which was a small warehouse. He greeted me and took me in the back where there were several dozen crates of slate, ranging in various sizes. Most of the slate was known as multi-color.  

I took off my jacket, hung up my fedora and got out my calipers and asked, “Which containers should I examine?” 

He looked at me and said, “All of them.” 

“OK,” I said, “this is going to be a long day.”  One of his workers opened up the first crate. The tiles where stacked neatly with the edges facing up. You could see without a doubt that they were all different thicknesses. 

I pulled several from the crate and measured them with my calipers. I got measurements from as little as 17mm to as much as 36 mm.  For the next few hours I measured tiles from all of the crates. I did not find one crate that had uniformly gauged tiles. 

As far as I was concerned, this was an open and shut case. “The material just isn’t gauged,” I said. Now the fun begins…enter the attorneys.

I won’t bore you with all the preliminary legal stuff. I had a deposition and the case went on for over a year. In most cases these things settle, but not this time. This goes all the way to trial with a full jury. Now the fun really begins.

The day I was to testify, the importer’s attorney met with me for breakfast to review my testimony. She was a young, very attractive woman. Long, dark hair and dressed to kill.  

We reviewed what I was going to say. I told her this should be an easy case, since the whole trail was based on one word and what the word meant. She agreed and off to the courthouse we went.

I was called to the stand and sworn in. My attorney asked the normal questions about me, my qualifications, etc. Then we got to the main question. “Mr. Stone Detective, what does the word gauged mean?”  

I looked at the jury and said, “It simply means a uniform thickness.” She then asked me were there any documents or references to back that up. 

I responded with, “Yes, there are several  sources. The first is the Marble Institute of America’s design manual which gives the definition as a uniform thickness. The second reference is an Architectural Directory of building terms which gives a similar definition. Finally, there is a gentleman by the name of Daniel Webster who also defines it as a uniform thickness.” 

At this point I thought we proved our point and the case would be over. But, oh no. When I was cross examined, the other attorney who was about 80 years old, tried to trick me in several ways. The funniest is he gave me a caliper and asked me to use it on a sample stone. 

He gave me a caliper that was flawed and tried to prove that I didn’t know how to use it. I managed to discover that, and he ended his cross examination. Now it was time for their expert. 

They called this gentleman to the stand and he looked just like Santa Claus. He was heavy, full white beard and started joking with the jury. He had charisma and totally won them over. 

When he was asked what gauged was, he came up with this made up explanation about the overall dimension of the stone. He never mentioned thickness. When my attorney asked him about the definitions of gauged, he looked at the jury and said, “Well that’s what the books say, but the people in this industry don’t use the word that way.” He told them it was a kind of slang word for dimensional size.  

Now for the surprise. The jury believed him and ruled the case in their favor. Just goes to show you that even in a court of law, being right don’t mean you will win. Wish I could say another case solved but instead I’ll just say, another lesson learned.

The Stone Detective is a fictional character created by Fred Hueston, written to be entertaining and educational. He has written over 33 books on stone and tile installations, fabrication and restoration and also serves as an expert for many legal cases across the world. You can send any email comments to him at fhueston@stoneforensics.com