Handwritten Note from "Betty" to "Jim" on Owen Hall's Disability Retirement (1976)

A three-page handwritten note on Mitchell Bros. Truck Lines notepaper, signed "Betty" and addressed "Dear Jim," stamped privileged by J-M. Betty wrote that Owen Hall had applied for disability retirement, and that she had had the plant physician, whom "Bill Reitze knows," compose "a careful letter" requesting it; the retirement committee asked for detailed information, and she enclosed the doctor's letter, which "only confirms my opinion it is better to let sleeping dogs lie." The letter, she wrote, "should gladden the heart of any good comp attorney," and Hall had copies for state disability and Social Security. If he wrote "yes" where the form asked "Could this disability be work related," or anyone read the letter, "we may have a new comp suit. Hopefully we won't."

What it shows

The note closes by sending these "little gems" with "everlasting gratitude" to the retirement committee in the "Denver Ivory tower." It shows a J-M location managing an employee's disability retirement with an eye to keeping it from becoming a workers' compensation claim.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

Handwritten letter to Jim (?), from Betty (?), 4/76, describes two workers' compensation cases that would be of interest to "Jim" and Will Reitze. On page 2 of the letter, Betty states that she has been practicing "avoidance behavior with regard to Myron Janke, a foreman who died of lung cancer."

Editor's note: J-M's description says the letter describes two compensation cases and that page 2 mentions "avoidance behavior" toward Myron Janke, a foreman who died of lung cancer. No such passage is in this file, whose three pages concern only Owen Hall's application for disability retirement.