Celotex's Answers to Plaintiff's Master Interrogatories in Laird v. Celotex (1984)

The Celotex Corporation's answers, for itself and its predecessor The Philip Carey Manufacturing Company, to the plaintiff's master interrogatories in Laird v. Celotex, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (C83-2720A), served on August 17, 1984. Celotex says it had no interest in asbestos insulation until it bought Panacon Corporation in 1972, so it "can only relay" what it learned from employees of the predecessors and "cannot attest to the accuracy or truthfulness" of it. The exhibits (pp. 40–122) include a Philip Carey corporate history, a list of Philip Carey and Celotex asbestos products with dates and contents, an Indiana State Board of Health letter on Careytemp, a Kettering Laboratory report, sales literature and affidavits.

What it shows

Celotex says some hazards were known "sometime just prior to 1960" and the risk to insulators by the mid-1960s, and dates its first warnings to 1972. Its answers give two reasons for making Careytemp asbestos-free in 1969: "the controversy" after a year of using amosite, and "the general acceptance of Dr. Selikoff's study". They also date the retaining of Mancuso to both 1962 and 1963.

About this copy

The questions are not printed: the document gives numbered answers only (1 to 175). The verification by D. S. Gibson is dated August 25, 1982, two years before service, and may have been carried over from an earlier set.