Gates, McDonald & Company Letters on David Mulligan's Ohio Silicosis Claim Against J-M (1962–1963)

Two letters from Gates, McDonald & Company of Columbus, Ohio, a claims service representing the Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, about a workers' compensation claim by insulator David Michael Mulligan. On July 26, 1962, the firm sent the Ohio Bureau of Workmen's Compensation an uncertified disability form, saying J-M had withheld certification and asking for an investigation. On January 14, 1963, it reported that Mulligan had worked as an insulator for about sixteen years but for J-M only two weeks, starting April 9, 1962, after symptoms began April 4, and that the claim would likely be disallowed because Ohio's rules required "total disability" for silicosis claims.

What it shows

The Bureau's investigator found that Mulligan's condition was present before he joined J-M and that the claim should have been filed against a Pittsburgh construction company. After he went back to work in May 1962, the claim faced Ohio's rule that a silicosis claim had to involve total disability. Copies went to Frank H. Deeg, J-M's insurance manager, and C. L. Sheckler, manager of J-M's industrial health program. The letters treat the insulator's chest disease as silicosis; they do not mention asbestos.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

David Mulligan workers' compensation claim filed, alleging asbestosis as a result of employment in contract units of J-M and other employers over a 16 year period. The medicals indicated that Mulligan did have pneumoconiosis and coronary heart disease but at that time the rules for silicosis claims applied also to asbestosis claims and since Mulligan did not have a 100% disability he was not entitled to any award on the merits. However, he did establish that through work in the insulation trades he had contracted asbestosis.

Editor's note: J-M's description says the medical evidence showed pneumoconiosis and heart disease and that Mulligan established he had contracted asbestosis. These two letters contain no medical findings or decision; they describe the claim as one for silicosis, say it would likely be disallowed because Ohio required total disability, and say Mulligan had worked for J-M only two weeks of his sixteen years as an insulator.