Insurance Executives' Committee of Five on Compensation for Occupational Diseases (1934)

A four-page statement by the Advisory Committee of Five on Occupational Diseases of the Association of Casualty and Surety Executives, whose members came from the Travelers Insurance Company (chair), Aetna Life, Maryland Casualty, Fidelity & Casualty of New York and the Employers' Liability Assurance Corporation, with P. Tecumseh Sherman as counsel. It said silicosis suits had become "a serious and demoralizing racket" in many states, and that what applied to silicosis "applies with equal force to asbestosis - which is a less familiar disease than silicosis and only now coming to be recognized as an occupational disease." The committee urged that compensation cover only diseases listed in a schedule, in a separate part of the workmen's compensation law, and that laws imposing "indefinite duties" on employers to protect workers' health be repealed, "to the end that the employers' duties for prevention may be definite and certain and that speculative litigation may be avoided."

What it shows

The statement shows the casualty insurers in 1934 treating asbestosis alongside silicosis as a coming problem for workers' compensation and the courts. It argued that the true remedy for occupational disease lay neither in compensation nor in "suits for damages for theoretical negligence," but in prevention through industrial hygiene.

About this copy

This is an insurance industry statement, not a Johns-Manville paper, and the file does not show how J-M came to have it. It probably reached J-M through one of its insurers or other business contacts (J-M's own chronology describes a 1937 to 1938 workers' compensation policy issued to J-M by one committee member, the Employers' Liability Assurance Corporation),but that is a guess.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Joint "Committee of Five on Occupational Diseases" of the Association of Casualty and Surety Executives (Travelers, Aetna Life, Maryland Casualty, Fidelity & Casualty of NY, ELAC) issue "Suggestions for provisions for a Workmen's Compensation Plan for Occupational Diseases," 10/23/34, specifically discusses silicosis and asbestosis.