AsbestosAsbestos Industry
Significant Dates
As you go through the process of deciding if you need legal representation, we urge you to consider what information was readily available to the asbestos industry as early as the 1930's. We have compiled an extensive database regarding medical literature, records from trade associations, and worker's compensation claims from the 1930's and other incriminating documents against the asbestos manufacturers and suppliers.
During the 1930's-1960's, the most widely read medical journals in the United States featured articles about asbestos related cancer. For example, The American Journal of Cancer published "Pulmonary Asbestosis: Carcinoma of the Lung in Asbesto-Silicosis" in 1935 and "Pulmonary Asbestosis: A Report of Bronchial Carcinoma and Epithelial Metaplasia" in 1939. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published "Industrial Management and Occupational Cancer" in 1964. The article that is incorrectly cited as the source that first linked asbestos with malignant mesothelioma, called "Primary Malignant Mesothelioma of the Pleura," was published in Lancet in 1960. (Klemperer and Rabin used the term "mesothelioma" in 1931.)
Workers compensation laws were passed at the request of the insurance companies and their insureds like Johns-Manville to protect them from being sued by their employees for diseases such as silicosis or asbestosis. By the late 1930's, many states' workman's compensation laws compensated individuals for asbestos disease. The first known asbestos lawsuits were filed in 1929 in New Jersey. We have compiled an overview of interesting dates and facts prior to asbestos being removed from commercially available products in the 1970's.
| 1927 | Massachusetts | Awards disability to individual with occupational lung disease. |
|---|---|---|
| 1929 | New Jersey | 11 Johns Manville plant workers sue JM for lung disease. |
| 1930 | Connecticut | State allows compensation for individual with asbestos disease. |
| 1932 | Asbestosis manufacturing begins receiving specific attention in the writing of insurance policies. | |
| 1934 | North Carolina | State lists asbestosis as a compensable disease. |
| 1935 | Illinois | 20 Johns Manville plant workers sue JM for lung disease. |
| 1936 | Massachusetts | 90 workers file workman's compensation against Multibestos division of Dewey & Almy (which later became W.R. Grace) for asbestosis. |
| 1942 | Ohio | Owens Corning, in an effort to persuade insulators that fiberglass is safe, compiles bibliography of articles referring to the hazards of asbestos exposure. |
| 1950 | Pennsylvania | State allows worker's compensation for lung cancer accompanying asbestosis. |
| 1952 | Massachusetts | Union Insulator files suit against Armstrong for asbestosis and lung cancer. |
| 1953 | Florida | Union Insulator files suit against Armstrong for asbestosis. |
| 1955 | Connecticut | Union Insulator files suit against Mundet (Crown Cork & Seal), Johns Manville, Armstrong, and Robert A. Keasbey Co. for asbestosis. |
| 1957 | Louisiana | Union Insulator files workers compensation claim against Owens Corning, Fibreboard, Armstrong, and Johns Manville for pneumoconiosis. |
| 1957 | Wisconsin | Union Insulator awarded monetary damages for disability from asbestosis. |
| 1957 | New Jersey | Union Insulator files federal court lawsuit for asbestosis. |
| 1957 | New York | Armstrong Insulator awarded permanent total disability for asbestosis. |
| 1958 | California | Long Beach Naval Shipyard awards compensation for shipyard worker with asbestosis. |
| 1960 | Massachusetts | Armstrong settles asbestosis death claim with widow of insulator. |
| 1960 | Texas | Armstrong settles asbestosis death claim with widow of insulator. |
| 1960 | New York | Mundet (Crown Cork & Seal) settles asbestosis claim with Union Insulator. |
| 1961 | Michigan | Johns Manville and Armstrong settle asbestosis claim with Union Insulator. |
| 1962 | Minnesota | State awards compensation to insulator with asbestosis. |
| 1963 | New York | Robert A. Keasbey Insulator sues R&I (Combustion Engineering) for asbestosis. |
| 1964 | New York | Dr. Irving Selikoff holds first conference regarding his study of asbestos disease in insulators. |
