WBRZ - Baton Rouge

NEW ORLEANS - A federal jury has ruled in favor of a New Orleans drywall supplier that distributed the faulty Knauf-brand imported Chinese drywall in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Rick Duplantier, the lead trial lawyer for the firm, told The Times-Picayune that the trial which ended this week found that the local firm did not know that the materials purchased from Knauf were defective.

The company, Interior/Exterior Building Supply, had purchased the drywall in the months following Katrina in 2005.

Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin, a major manufacturer of problem drywall from China, last year agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to repair 4,500 mostly Gulf Coast area homes ruined with its product. That deal is still awaiting final court approval.