US EPA

3098476 

Technical Report 

The Asbestos Industry on Trial. I A Failure to Warn 

Brodeur, P 

1985 

NIOSH/00188531 

pages 49 

49-52 

This article reviewed legal actions taken against and by the Manville Corporation concerning individuals exposed to asbestos (1332214) on the job. The history of the legal difficulties of asbestos manufacturers was reviewed, starting with the case of Claude Tomplait, in 1961. The case was concluded in September of 1973 when an appellate court handed down a landmark decision in a product liability lawsuit brought against Johns-Manville and several other leading manufacturers of asbestos insulation. As early as the first century the adverse biological effects of asbestos were noted. Modern knowledge of asbestosis dates from 1900 when a physician in London's Charing Cross Hospital performed a post mortem exam on a 33 year old male who had worked for 14 years in an asbestos textile factory. Thirty years later asbestos lung disease was established by autopsy in the United States. The first study of mortality among asbestos workers appeared in 1906, studying employees at an asbestos weaving mill. In 1924 the first clear case of death due to asbestosis appeared in the medical literature. Asbestos manufacturers were aware that workmen's compensation would be to their benefit as it would remove the jury, eliminate the opposing lawyer and cut down on the benefits awarded, making them adhere to an already drawn up set of awards. Cases were being settled for silicosis at the same time Johns-Manville Corporation struck a deal with an attorney representing 11 asbestos cases, in 1933. A public outcry arose for remedial legislation and over the next decade workmen's compensation statutes for pulmonary dust diseases were enacted in some 20 states. The Tomplait case and the Borel case as handled by the attorney, Ward Stephenson, were reviewed in some detail.