Leslie Controls Asbestos Trust Claims

If you served in the Navy, worked in a powerhouse, or worked construction and maintenance around steam systems, and a mesothelioma or other asbestos diagnosis has now come in, the valves Leslie Controls made may be part of the reason, and the company left behind a trust built to pay these claims.

For most of the twentieth century, Leslie Controls was a major maker of the control valves that ran the steam systems on U.S. Navy ships, in powerhouses, and across heavy industry. Those valves were sealed with asbestos gaskets and packing, and every time one was installed, serviced, repacked, or torn down, that asbestos went into the air, for the worker doing the job and for everyone nearby in the tight, closed spaces below a ship's deck or inside a powerhouse. When the lawsuits caught up with the company, its parent, CIRCOR, funded a trust, the Leslie Controls Asbestos Personal Injury Trust, with $74 million. That trust is open and still paying today.

You don't need to remember valve models or part numbers, and you don't need old service records in hand. The trust accepts sworn statements, coworker and shipmate accounts, service records, and work histories to document exposure, and reconstructing that is our job, not yours. One thing is worth knowing up front, because it can multiply what a claim is worth: this trust pays Navy, shipyard, and powerhouse exposure on a much higher schedule than ordinary construction work. We explain that below. If you can tell us where you worked or served and when, we have a place to start.

What the Leslie Controls trust pays

Before any number means anything on a Leslie claim, you have to know which of the trust's two schedules applies to you, because Leslie values claims very differently depending on where the exposure happened.

If your exposure to Leslie valves came from Navy or shipyard work on naval vessels, from serving at a below-deck naval station, or from working in a powerhouse, your claim falls on the trust's higher Powerhouse and Below-Deck Naval Station schedule, where mesothelioma is valued at $100,000 and can reach $350,000 through Individual Review.

If your exposure came from other settings, general construction and maintenance work around Leslie valves, your claim falls on the lower Construction and Maintenance schedule, where mesothelioma is valued at $25,000 and can reach $125,000. The two are about four times apart, so which one applies is the single biggest factor in what a Leslie claim is worth. It matters all the more because the trust treats a claim as a construction-and-maintenance claim by default unless the Navy, shipyard, or powerhouse exposure is set out and designated, which is one of the first things we make sure is done right.

Mesothelioma sits at the top of both seven-level schedules.

Powerhouse and Below-Deck Naval Station claims

Construction and maintenance claims

An em-dash means the trust doesn't list that figure: lung cancer 2 has no fixed scheduled value (it's handled through Individual Review), and the two lowest asbestosis/pleural levels are paid at a flat scheduled amount only. As with most trusts, mesothelioma's maximum value sits far above its scheduled value, which is why a serious claim is usually worth the closer Individual Review look.

Two things matter when you read these values. First, the trust doesn't pay the listed amount in full; it pays a percentage of it, currently 6.25%, which is how a finite fund stretches across everyone it owes, including the families who won't be diagnosed for years. We explain that below. Second, a Leslie valve was one of many asbestos products in a Navy steam plant or a powerhouse, so the same service almost always supports claims against other trusts and defendants too. For most people the Leslie claim is one piece of a larger recovery built across the whole work or service history.

How Leslie valves exposed workers to asbestos

Leslie Controls didn't make asbestos, and it didn't mine it. It made valves, the control valves and regulators that ran the high-pressure steam systems on Navy ships, in powerhouses, and across heavy industry. What made those valves a hazard was inside them: the gaskets that sealed the joints and the packing that sealed the moving stems were made of asbestos, because asbestos held against the heat and pressure that steam service demanded. Leslie bought those parts from other component makers and built them into its valves, and it built the valves to the Navy's own specifications, which at the time called for asbestos.

The danger came from servicing the valves. A valve in service had to be maintained: the old gasket scraped and cut off the flange faces when a valve was opened up, the worn packing pulled out of the stuffing box and new packing cut and seated, the whole unit sometimes ground and cleaned. Each of those tasks took the asbestos that had baked hard inside the valve and put it back into the air as dust. Installing a new valve and tearing out an old one did the same. On a ship or in a powerhouse, this work happened constantly, because steam systems run on hundreds of valves and every one of them needs service.

And it happened in the worst possible places for dust. The engine rooms, fire rooms, and machinery spaces below a Navy ship's deck were cramped, hot, and poorly ventilated, and the powerhouse was little better. When a machinist's mate or a pipefitter opened up a Leslie valve in that space, the asbestos didn't stay near him; it filled the compartment, and everyone serving or working there breathed it. That's why the trust's higher schedule reaches not just the worker doing the valve job but anyone in the immediate vicinity of it. Below deck, proximity was exposure.

A Leslie claim also rarely stands alone. A valve was one piece of a steam system packed with asbestos, the insulation lagging the pipes, the gaskets and packing in every other fitting, the materials from dozens of makers. The same service that exposed a worker to Leslie's valves exposed him to all of it. We come back to that below, because it's where much of the recovery is. To understand how valve gaskets and packing released asbestos, see how asbestos gaskets and packing caused exposure and Navy veterans and asbestos exposure.

How the Leslie bankruptcy created the asbestos trust

By 2009, Leslie Controls was named in thousands of asbestos lawsuits, most of them tied to the Navy steam systems its valves had served from the 1940s onward, and hundreds of them mesothelioma cases. Rather than fight them one by one indefinitely, the company and its parent, CIRCOR, worked out a plan with the asbestos claimants ahead of time and took it into bankruptcy. In July 2010, Leslie filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware.

What came out of that bankruptcy was a trust, set up under the part of the bankruptcy law written for asbestos, Section 524(g). That section lets a court channel every asbestos claim against a company, the ones already filed and the ones still to surface decades later, into a single trust that pays them in the company's place. CIRCOR funded the trust with $74 million, along with a $2.6 million insurance settlement and the right to recover from Leslie's remaining insurance over time, and the trust began paying claims after the plan took effect.

Here's something that surprises people: Leslie Controls is still in business. It reorganized through the bankruptcy and continues to operate today as a CIRCOR subsidiary, still making valves, still supplying the Navy. That doesn't change anything about your claim, because the bankruptcy did exactly what these bankruptcies are built to do: it separated the old asbestos liability from the working business and parked it in the trust. You're not suing a valve company or threatening anyone's job. You're filing a claim against a fund that was set up, and set aside, specifically to pay it.

What the trust pays, and why it's a percentage

The trust pays a set amount based on your diagnosis, scaled to how serious the disease is, with mesothelioma at the top of each schedule. As the value tables above show, Leslie is unusual in having two schedules, and which applies, the much higher Navy and powerhouse schedule or the lower construction-and-maintenance schedule, is the biggest single factor in what a claim is worth. Establishing which fits your work or service, and making sure it's designated that way on the claim rather than defaulting to the lower one, is one of the first things we do.

Within whichever schedule applies, how you file decides which amount is within reach, because the trust offers two tracks:

• Expedited Review is the fast track, paying the fixed scheduled value for your disease level with a quicker turnaround.
• Individual Review is the evidence-based track, where the trust weighs the specifics of your case and can pay up to the much higher maximum value. For mesothelioma we always do a thorough exposure-history investigation to determine whether filing Individual Review is warranted, because on the Navy and powerhouse schedule the gap between the scheduled and the maximum value, $100,000 against $350,000, is large enough to matter to your family.

Whichever schedule and track apply, the trust doesn't pay the full value of the claim. Like every asbestos trust, it pays a percentage of it, currently 6.25%, so a finite fund can reach everyone it owes. That's the same principle behind every bankruptcy: the law shares what there is across everyone harmed, instead of paying a lucky few in full and leaving the rest with nothing. The trust reviews that percentage over time and adjusts it to keep the fund solvent. We confirm the current figure against the trust's notices when your claim is filed.

A low percentage is exactly why the next part matters so much. A Leslie claim is rarely meant to stand on its own.

Is the Leslie Controls asbestos trust still able to pay?

Yes. It's a mid-sized trust that's been paying steadily since it was set up, and here's the picture from its most recent annual report.

• About $62 million on hand. At the end of 2025 the trust held roughly $62 million in net assets, drawing down modestly over the year as it paid claims. It's not one of the billion-dollar manufacturer trusts, but it's a substantial fund that's actively paying.
• Backed by a solvent parent's funding. The trust was funded with $74 million from CIRCOR, Leslie's parent, plus insurance recoveries that have continued to come in over the years. It was built to last across decades of claims.
• A percentage managed to last. The trust pays a percentage of each claim, which it reviews and adjusts to keep the fund solvent for the people still to be diagnosed. The percentage is modest, which is the ordinary mechanics of a finite fund, not a sign of trouble.

Because the percentage is modest and the fund is finite, the Leslie claim is usually understood as one piece of a larger recovery rather than the whole of it, which for a Navy or powerhouse worker it almost always is. The trust is open, funded, and paying right now, and a claim filed today is paid at the current percentage. We track the annual reporting and can walk through the full financial picture with you when you call.

Who qualifies for a Leslie Controls trust claim

A trust claim rests on two things: a qualifying asbestos diagnosis, and proof that you were exposed to Leslie asbestos during the period the trust covers. The diagnosis side is medical. The exposure side is where the trust's rules come in, and where most of our work happens.

The exposure has to fall before the end of 1986. The Leslie trust pays on asbestos exposure from before December 31, 1986, a somewhat later cutoff than many trusts use, which reflects how long these valves stayed in service. We lay out the full logic of trust cutoffs, and your options if your exposure came later, in our guide to how asbestos trust claims work. Most Navy and powerhouse careers of that era fall well within the window.

For mesothelioma, you don't need heavy exposure. Mesothelioma can come from brief, limited exposure, and the trust recognizes that: a meso claim asks for credible exposure to Leslie asbestos and doesn't have to clear the higher dose threshold that applies to the other diseases. That threshold, Significant Occupational Exposure (SOE), along with six months of exposure to Leslie asbestos, applies to lung cancer, the other cancers, and the more serious asbestosis claims. It counts work done near the dust, not only handling it yourself, which matters on a ship: a sailor who served in the same machinery space where the valves were worked qualifies on that basis.

Which schedule applies is part of qualifying, and it's where the value is. Because the two schedules are so far apart, establishing that your exposure was Navy, shipyard, or powerhouse exposure, and designating the claim that way rather than letting it default to the lower construction schedule, is most of the value of a Leslie claim. That's proven the same way the rest of the exposure is, through your service and work history and the accounts of people who served or worked with you, and it's something we build deliberately.

You did not have to turn the wrench yourself. The higher schedule expressly reaches exposure in the immediate vicinity of someone installing, removing, or maintaining Leslie valves. A sailor or worker who was simply present in the space while that work went on can qualify on the Navy and powerhouse schedule, not just the worker doing the job.

The trust pays milder disease too, at lower amounts, with set levels for milder asbestosis and pleural disease on both schedules. They're modest, but they can be worth filing alongside other claims.

Family members can qualify too. If a worker or sailor brought the dust home on his clothes, his hair, his seabag, a spouse who laundered the work clothes or a child in the household can file on the worker's exposure history. how take-home asbestos exposure works.

How the trust documents your exposure

The Leslie trust doesn't use a customer-by-customer worksite list; it builds the proof around the work and the product. A sworn statement from you, an account from a shipmate or coworker who remembers the valve work and the spaces it happened in, a family member's statement for someone who has passed, and service and employment records all count. For a machinist's mate, pipefitter, boiler tender, or powerhouse worker who spent time around steam-valve maintenance, that exposure, and the Navy or powerhouse designation that drives the value, is usually well within reach to document, even decades later. Putting it together, in the form the trust requires, is our job.

How a Leslie claim gets filed

A trust claim isn't a lawsuit, and that surprises people who expect a courtroom. There's no judge, no jury, no deposition, and no defense lawyer arguing the other side. You're submitting a documented claim to a fund that already exists to pay it, and the trust reviews it against its written rules and pays on its schedule.

What the claim needs is proof of your diagnosis and your exposure to Leslie asbestos before the cutoff, including the service or work history that puts you on the Navy and powerhouse schedule where it applies. Putting that together is our job. We gather the medical records, reconstruct the history, document the exposure the way the trust's rules require, designate the right schedule, and choose the track, Expedited or Individual Review, that fits your situation. You don't need to have kept paperwork or remember part numbers to start.

The Leslie trust has been paying claims since the early 2010s and is still accepting them, so the door is open. The fuller mechanics of how trust claims are prepared, filed, and paid are laid out in our guide to how asbestos trust claims work. When you call, we'll tell you what your specific claim is likely to involve and how the timeline tends to run.

A Leslie claim is rarely the only one

Here's the part that changes the math for most families: the Leslie trust is usually one claim out of several, and the others come from the very same work.

A Leslie valve never operated alone. It sat in a steam system packed with asbestos, the insulation lagging the pipes and the valve bodies, the gaskets and packing in every other fitting and pump, the materials supplied by dozens of manufacturers. Many of those companies also went bankrupt and left their own asbestos trusts, and the same service in the same engine room or powerhouse that exposed a worker to Leslie's valves exposed him to all of it. The career that supports your Leslie claim usually supports claims against several of those other trusts at once, and because each trust reviews and pays independently, the claims don't compete with each other. They add up. how asbestos trust claims work.

This matters all the more for a Leslie claim, because the trust pays a modest percentage. On its own, a Leslie claim, even a Navy mesothelioma claim, is a meaningful but limited piece. Built alongside the insulation and other equipment makers' trusts, and the lawsuits and benefits that can run with them, especially the VA benefits available to Navy veterans, it becomes part of something much larger. We walk through a full worked example, several trusts totaled across one career, in our guide to mesothelioma trust settlement values. The full set of channels beyond the trusts is laid out next.

Sources of compensation beyond the Leslie trust

A Leslie claim usually sits inside a larger recovery, and the channels run in parallel without canceling one another out. For a Navy and powerhouse population, the benefit channels are often as important as the trusts, so we start there.

• VA benefits and Longshore compensation. Navy veterans exposed below deck or at naval facilities can pursue VA disability compensation, and filing a trust claim doesn't reduce it. Civilian shipyard workers are often covered by the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, a separate federal benefit for maritime workers, and federal-facility workers may have FECA claims. Social Security disability is available to anyone whose illness stops them from working. how asbestos disability and benefit claims work.
• Asbestos bankruptcy trusts. Leslie is one, and as the section above explains, the steam systems its valves served almost always reach a set of other trusts, usually the larger insulation and equipment makers. They review and pay independently, so they stack. how asbestos trust claims work.
• Lawsuits against solvent manufacturers. Several makers of asbestos valves, gaskets, packing, and related equipment are still in business and can be sued directly for making and selling a product they knew was dangerous, and a lawsuit can recover more than a trust claim, though it takes longer. how asbestos product liability lawsuits work.
• Premises liability against the site owners. The shipyards, utilities, and plants where the work was done can be held responsible for the asbestos conditions they allowed on their property, separate from the equipment makers. how premises liability claims work.

Your Leslie trust claim has no defenses to answer. It's a paper claim: no opposing lawyer, no deposition, no courtroom, no one arguing the other side. Leslie's asbestos liability was resolved when the trust was funded, and the trust either pays the claim or it doesn't, on its written rules.

Defenses only come up on the lawsuit side, the claims that run alongside the trust against the equipment makers still in business and the premises owners where you worked. Those defendants raise the same handful of arguments they raise in most asbestos cases, and none of them is new to us. The short version is that each one describes a cleaner, smaller version of the work than the one your loved one actually did, and the evidence answers it.