Deposition of Percy J. Gartly in Johns-Manville v. United States, Excerpts (1984)

Eight pages of excerpts from the deposition of Percy J. Gartly, a former Johns-Manville salesman and government sales representative, taken on September 28, 1984, in Johns-Manville's suits against the United States in the federal court in San Francisco and the U.S. Claims Court. Gartly, who sold Transite pipe in the early 1960s and covered the Long Beach Naval Shipyard from 1951 to 1961, testified that he never gave the shipyard's public works office literature about asbestos-containing thermal insulation, did not discuss respirators with anyone at Mare Island Naval Shipyard because that was "not in my scope of work," and did not distribute literature on the health aspects of asbestos.

What it shows

The case was one of Johns-Manville's suits against the United States (No. C81-4561 in the federal court in San Francisco and Nos. 465-83C, 1-84C and 688-83C in the U.S. Claims Court), in which J-M sought to make the government share the cost of asbestos claims by shipyard workers. Gartly said the literature he left at public works offices, including Mare Island's, was mainly J-M's product information book, which gave each product's name and the federal or military specification it met. He agreed that leaving it was a service to the government and also a way of "promoting Johns-Manville products," and that other manufacturers did the same.