Maremont Asbestos Trust Claims

If you or someone in your family worked as an auto mechanic, or worked on cars at home, and later developed mesothelioma or another asbestos disease, the Maremont name may come up in your case. Maremont made and sold replacement auto parts, including asbestos brake linings, disc pads and clutch facings, and its exhaust business made mufflers. Its brake linings were sold under the Grizzly name.

Maremont went through bankruptcy in 2019 and set up a bankruptcy trust to pay asbestos claims. You can file against it. The Maremont trust pays 34% of a claim's scheduled value, which comes to about $40,600 for a mechanic's mesothelioma claim. That is more than many other asbestos trusts pay.

You don't need old receipts or part numbers to start. Piecing together the work history is our job, not yours.

What Maremont made, and who used it

Maremont Corporation made, distributed and sold aftermarket automotive parts, meaning parts sold to replace worn ones. In its trust's words, these included "friction products such as brake linings, disc pads, and clutch facings, and aftermarket mufflers." Maremont's brake business was its Grizzly Brake Division, and our library holds a 1956 advertisement for Maremont's Grizzly brake linings. Its brake operations included a plant in Paulding County, Ohio.

In 1977 Maremont put its friction-products business into a new company, Nuturn Corporation, controlled by Turner & Newall. The trust also covers asbestos products of Nuturn and of Ferodo America, as successors to Maremont's brake business. Maremont later became part of ArvinMeritor, then Meritor. Meritor has said Maremont made asbestos friction products from 1953 until it sold the business in 1977, and that a Maremont subsidiary made asbestos exhaust products from 1954 to 1978. You can read more in our history of Maremont Corporation.

Brake and clutch work released asbestos dust when mechanics blew out brake drums with compressed air, sanded or ground new linings to fit, or swept up afterward. See our pages on auto mechanics and brake workers and brakes, clutches and friction products.

The trust recognizes two kinds of claimant:

• Professional auto mechanics. The trust's procedures list automotive mechanics as the only presumed occupation. A mechanic must show that he or she worked directly with Maremont products.
• Home mechanics. The trust calls these "Shade Tree Mechanic" claims: people who did maintenance and upgrades on cars at home. They can file only for mesothelioma, and they must show that their Maremont exposure was substantial in length.

The Maremont bankruptcy and the trust

Before it filed, Maremont faced about 1,900 active asbestos lawsuits. Maremont and three related companies filed a prepackaged Chapter 11 case on January 22, 2019, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (Case No. 19-10118), after asbestos claimants had already voted to accept the plan. The bankruptcy court confirmed the plan on May 17, 2019, in a decision reported as In re Maremont Corp., 601 B.R. 1. The federal district court affirmed on June 27, 2019, and the plan took effect on July 9, 2019.

The plan set up the Maremont Asbestos Personal Injury Trust, a Section 524(g) trust. The trust received about $47.6 million in cash, Maremont's insurance rights, and all the stock of the reorganized Maremont. Meritor described the funding as a $28 million contribution from Meritor plus Maremont's remaining assets, including about $21 million in cash and receivables, and its insurance. Verus Claims Services processes the claims.

What the Maremont trust pays

The trust's Trust Distribution Procedures set five disease levels, each with a scheduled value. The scheduled values go up 1% each January.

Source: Maremont Asbestos Personal Injury Trust Distribution Procedures, §5.3(a)(3); the trust's Notice of Inflation Adjustments to Scheduled Values, effective January 1, 2026; Notice Regarding Payment Percentage, September 29, 2026. The right-hand column is our arithmetic: scheduled value times 34.0%. Home-mechanic claims are paid once a year from a separate, capped share of the trust's money, so they may receive less than the figure shown.

"Other cancer" covers colorectal, laryngeal, esophageal, pharyngeal and stomach cancer. Lung cancer and other cancer require signs of asbestos disease on both sides of the chest, such as lung scarring or pleural plaques. Severe asbestosis requires advanced scarring on X-ray or in pathology, plus breathing tests showing serious impairment. The trust has no payment level for milder asbestosis or pleural disease alone.

The payment percentage, and how it has risen

A trust pays a set share of each claim's value so it can keep paying people diagnosed years from now. The Maremont trust paid 28.4% from August 2020. In September 2026, with the consent of its advisory committee and future claimants' representative, it raised the rate to 34.0%. Mechanics and family members it paid earlier at 28.4% get a supplemental payment to bring them up to the new rate, unless the top-up would be under $250. Home-mechanic claims don't.

The trust's finances

The trust had about $49.6 million in net claimants' equity at the end of 2025, up slightly from $48.7 million a year earlier. Through 2025 it had received 8,229 claims; 5,917 of them had not been approved: claims rejected, withdrawn, deferred or still missing documents. In 2025 it paid 166 claims, about $2.09 million in all. Its finances come from its annual report for 2025, filed with the bankruptcy court.

How a Maremont claim works

Most claims go through Expedited Review. The trust checks the claim against fixed medical and exposure rules. If it meets them, the trust pays the scheduled value for that level times the payment percentage. Only two kinds of claim go through individual review: home-mechanic claims where Maremont was at least 75% of the person's asbestos exposure and little recovery is likely elsewhere, and claims for exposure outside the United States (other than Canadian residents exposed in Canada). A home mechanic's claim like that can be valued up to $34,264 (the figure in the 2019 procedures), times the payment percentage, and a special panel's decision on it is final. A claimant who disagrees with the trust about the medical evidence or exposure can take it to binding or non-binding arbitration, and after non-binding arbitration can sue the trust. Claims are reviewed in the order they were filed, using a first-in, first-out queue, and professional mechanics and their family members who are gravely ill can ask to be paid sooner.

Exposure rules depend on the disease. For a mechanic's mesothelioma claim, the trust needs a diagnosis and proof that the mechanic worked directly with Maremont products. For lung cancer, other cancer and severe asbestosis, the trust also requires:

• six months of exposure to Maremont products before December 31, 1982, and
• "Significant Occupational Exposure": at least five years in a job with regular asbestos exposure. See occupational exposure.

Proof can be ordinary evidence. The trust accepts a sworn statement from the claimant, a coworker or (if the worker has died) a family member. It also accepts invoices, employment records, interrogatory answers or deposition testimony. Claimants don't have to show exposure to other companies' products, except home mechanics. Home mechanics are asked to describe the brand, packaging and markings of the parts they used.

Family members can file. Someone who got sick from dust brought home on a mechanic's clothes can file for any level except the home-mechanic level, if the mechanic met the exposure rules and the family member's exposure was in the same years. See take-home exposure.

Filing deadlines. For anyone diagnosed after the January 22, 2019 bankruptcy filing, the trust allows three years from diagnosis or until April 21, 2023, whichever is later. Since that date has passed, the practical rule today is three years from diagnosis. A claim without the $100 fee is put on hold, and if the fee doesn't arrive within 60 days the claim is rejected. See statute of limitations. Wrongful-death and state deadlines can be shorter, so call soon.

Why a Maremont claim is one piece of a bigger case

At 34%, a mechanic's Maremont mesothelioma claim pays about $40,600, which is significant. But mechanics rarely used one brand. Over a career they worked with brake linings, clutches and gaskets from many companies. Several have trusts of their own. Abex and Wagner brake claims, for example, are paid by the Federal-Mogul trust. Some makers and parts sellers are still in business and can be sued. The same diagnosis and work history may support claims against other trusts and companies, and each one that pays does so separately.

That's why our first step is a full work history, not a single brand name. To learn more, read our guide to how asbestos trust claims work and our page on mesothelioma lawsuits.