Dugan v. R. V. Aycock Company, Court Papers, with J-M Sales Corporation's 1979 Interrogatory Answers (1933)

A 118-page file put together for the asbestos litigation of the late 1970s. Most of it is several certified copies of the papers in Bernard Dugan's 1933 suit in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, against R. V. Aycock Company, Aycock Corporation and R. V. Aycock. Dugan, a common laborer in Aycock's asbestos construction and repair business, said that mixing asbestos with water by hand left his lungs "surcharged" with asbestos "fumes and particles," that the defendants knew the danger but gave him no mask or warning, and asked $50,000; the defendants later reported that he had died on March 26, 1934. The file ends with Johns-Manville Sales Corporation's answers of March 21, 1979, to interrogatories about the case in the federal asbestosis cases in South Carolina, sent to Ronald L. Motley.

What it shows

In the 1979 answers J-M Sales admitted that in 1932 it bought assets of the Aycock distributing, contracting and warehouse business in Missouri and Texas, and that the predecessor's Texas operations had done "some limited thermal insulation contract work." Aycock Corporation, J-M's new subsidiary, had argued in 1933 that it did not exist when Dugan worked there and had him named only to keep the case in state court. The file also holds sections of the South Carolina workers' compensation code on occupational disease, a January 4, 1979, statement on occupational disease compensation by Eleanor M. Ross of the U.S. Department of Labor, and pages from a treatise on successive disabilities under New York law. A shorter set of the Dugan papers is on the chronology's page Bernard Dugan v. R. V. Aycock Company, Kansas City Court Papers (1933).

In Johns-Manville's index

Johns-Manville's legal department indexed the Motley 1,000 in 1984. Its index describes this document as follows:

Various pleadings filed in Bernard Dugan v. R.V. Aycock Company, et al. Complaint was filed in October of 1933 in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri. Dugan worked for R.V. Aycock Company, a repair and construction company for an unknown period of time. His work included the mixing of asbestos with water. J-M Sales Corp. bought certain assets of the R. V. Aycock Company in the summer of 1932 and transferred them to Aycock Corporation, a new subsidiary of J-M Sales Corp. Standard Accident and Insurance Co. defended J-M's Aycock Corporation in Dugan v. R. V. Aycock Company. Because Dugan never worked for Aycock Corporation (but only for the predecessor company, R. V. Aycock Company), the suit was dismissed as to Aycock Corporation. R. V. Aycock and R. V. Aycock Company were defended by the London Guaranty and Accident Company. (Please see Diemer/Markusson Documents #593-606 for more documents relating to the Dugan v. Aycock case.) Certain sections of the South Carolina Code relating to workers' compensation and occupational diseases, circa 1970's. Statement of Eleanor M. Ross (U.S. Dept. of Labor, Workers' Compensation Advisor to the southeastern states) regarding occupational diseases before the Workmen's Compensation Study Committee and the Governor's Advisory Committee for the Improvement of Workmen's Compensation Laws, 1/4/79. Certain sections from a treatise on New York law regarding workers' compensation and successive disabilities, circa 1970's. J-M Sales Corp. Answers to Plaintiff's Supplemental Interrogatories filed in In Re Asbestosis Cases (U.S.D.C., So. Carolina), dated 3/21/79. Interrogatories relate to the Dugan v. Aycock case.

Related documents

• Bernard Dugan v. R. V. Aycock Company, Kansas City Court Papers (1933)

About this copy

This is document 802 of the Motley 1,000, from the set the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust's records facility certified as true copies, pages CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-004249 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-004366.