Johns-Manville, Asbestos, Health and Johns-Manville (1981)

A 24-page booklet issued by Johns-Manville in September 1981, about a year before the company filed for bankruptcy, with a foreword signed by John A. McKinney, its chairman and chief executive officer. It sets out the company's public position under six headings: Overview, No Future Hazard, Litigation, Financial Impact, Regulation and Fair Compensation. J-M says that "asbestos can be used safely," that today's disease "is a legacy of the past," and that the 2-fiber OSHA standard is "a safe level of exposure." It reports more than 7,000 lawsuits by over 12,000 plaintiffs pending against it, and asks Congress to pass a no-fault Asbestos Health Hazards Compensation Act with costs shared by industry and the federal government.

What it shows

The booklet is J-M's own account of what it knew. It says that until 1964 knowledge was limited to asbestosis among mill and factory workers, that "there was no awareness at the time that any disease problem existed beyond asbestosis," and that the company acted "promptly and responsibly" and published the studies it sponsored. It answers the charge that J-M "tried to restrict the release of medical and scientific information" by saying "the evidence shows the opposite." Many documents in this Library bear on those claims; see the Sumner Simpson Papers.

The booklet also lays out J-M's litigation positions: that most claimants were shipyard workers whose employer, the federal government, "set the standard and specified the product"; that a Cleveland verdict for an insulator's widow was "a cigarette-smoker lung cancer case"; and that punitive damages should be awarded only once. It gives J-M's 1980 average payment per plaintiff ($23,000) and its insurance coverage (about $600 million), and notes that its accountants had qualified their opinion on its 1979 and 1980 financial statements because of the asbestos claims.

About this copy

The scan contains booklet page 18 twice; the second copy (page 19 of the file) is left out.