Lacho v. Johns-Manville, Court Papers (1939)

The federal court file in the death suit Julia Lacho brought against Johns-Manville Corporation in August 1939 for her husband John, a weaver at J-M's Manville, New Jersey, plant who stopped work on September 7, 1937, and died on October 21, 1938. The complaint said J-M let "large quantities of asbestos dust" stay in the plant air for long periods, failed to warn him or supply devices to keep the dust from his lungs, and violated New Jersey's factory ventilation law; it asked $50,000 on each of two counts. J-M's answer admitted that he worked there as a warper and weaver at various times from 1914 to 1937, and pleaded assumed risk, carelessness and the time limits. The case was noticed for trial in October 1939, then settled and discontinued.

What it shows

The complaint says J-M owed its workers a duty to warn them of the plant's hazards and to teach them to use protective devices. The same suit, with Frank Smutko's and a 1940 plant memo saying that "Smutko was never warned of any dust danger," is on the chronology's page on the Lacho and Smutko suits.

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 Julia Lacho v. J-M Corp. (Deceased: John Lacho). Complaint was filed in August 1939 in the U.S.D.C., New Jersey. Lacho was a textile worker at J-M's Manville plant for approximately 20 years.

Related documents

• The Lacho and Smutko Suits Against Johns-Manville, with C. W. Hite's Memo on Smutko (1939)

About this copy

This is document 752 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-003923 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-003988.