Tomplait v. The Travelers Insurance Company, Orange County Workers' Compensation Case File (1962–1966)

The Orange County District Clerk's certified microfilm copy of the case papers in Cause No. A-13,916, Claude J. Tomplait v. The Travelers Insurance Company, Texas Employers' Insurance Association and Queen Insurance Company of America, in the 128th District Court of Orange County, Texas. Tomplait, an insulator, appealed an Industrial Accident Board award of December 1962 on his claim for asbestosis and silicosis, which first showed itself in July 1961 while he worked for Armstrong Contracting and Supply Corporation. In September 1964 Travelers and Texas Employers settled for $5,000 and $1,000 for his work for Armstrong and for Johns-Manville; Queen Insurance settled for $1,500 in May 1966 for his work for The Aber Company. The file holds the petitions, answers and cross-actions, discovery, Tomplait's sworn answers listing his insulation jobs in 1963 and 1964, and the judgments.

What it shows

The insurers each argued that a later employer, and so another insurer, was liable, since Tomplait had kept working at insulation after 1961. His answers to interrogatories list jobs in 1963 and 1964 for several contractors, including Johns-Manville Sales Corporation at the Firestone plant in Orange, applying magnesia pipe covering. In November 1965 his lawyer, Ward Stephenson of Orange, served written questions on Dr. Irving J. Selikoff of the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York about Tomplait's X-rays, including how they differed from emphysema; the insurer's cross-questions stressed that Selikoff had not examined him. The file holds the questions but not Selikoff's answers. Tomplait went on to sue the insulation makers; that case and the National Archives copy of many of these papers are in the Tomplait v. Combustion Engineering case file, and Gordon Pate, who appears here for Travelers, wrote about the later case in his 1968 letter. Stephenson filed Clarence Borel's case in 1969 (the Borel v. Fibreboard case file).

About this copy

The 217 pages are not in date order. Pages 44, 126, 127 and 176 are left out because they give Tomplait's Social Security number.