LeGrande v. Johns-Manville Products, Plaintiff's Interrogatories and J-M's Answers (1957)

The interrogatories Frederick Le Grande's attorney served on Johns-Manville Products Corporation in 1957, and J-M's answers, given after Judge Wortendyke's order of January 17, 1958 (15 pages). J-M listed the asbestos insulation products sold to H. W. Porter & Co. and their asbestos content, and said respirators had been used in its plants for about 25 years. It answered that it had no knowledge of any case of asbestosis in an applicator, that "Asbestosis was first contracted by an employee of this defendant at one of its plants in 1946," and that since it "never received notice of any claim of asbestosis" outside its own manufacturing employees, "we had no reason to issue any warnings, instructions or preventions to any other persons."

What it shows

The answers set out J-M's position in an early product suit by an outside worker. J-M said its products, including magnesia pipe covering and Superex, could cause fibrosis "if the particles are of the requisite size and are inhaled in sufficient quantity," and that "workmen engaged in the formation of these products have developed such a disease." It also said that "since this defendant never had any reason to believe its products were toxic or noxious, it has not taken any action to reduce or minimize such supposed hazards in its products." Readers can set these answers beside J-M's own earlier papers in this collection.

In Johns-Manville's index

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

LeGrande's Interrogatories to J-M and J-M's Answers to LeGrande's Interrogatories filed in Frederick LeGrande v. J-M Products Corp., undated.

Related documents

• Judge Reynier J. Wortendyke, Jr., Ruling on Interrogatories in LeGrande v. Johns-Manville (1958)
• Johns-Manville Products Corporation's Answers to Interrogatories in Le Grande v. Johns-Manville (1958)

About this copy

This is document 600 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-001980 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-001994.