Johns-Manville Board Presentation Transparencies on Asbestos Litigation (1978)

Three pages from a presentation to Johns-Manville's board of directors on April 7, 1978: a cover sheet ("Board Presentation -- Selected Transparencies") and two charts. The first counts the company's open lawsuits by division at the end of 1975, 1976 and 1977: asbestos health cases rose from 106 to 250 to 562, more than half of the 1,024 open cases of every kind at the end of 1977. The second breaks the asbestos health plaintiffs down by quarter and by kind of worker, from before 1975 through 1977: 375 insulation workers, 209 shipyard workers, 497 factory workers and 36 others.

What it shows

The division chart sets asbestos health suits beside the ordinary litigation of a large manufacturer (Ag-Turf, Building Systems, Holophane, Pipe and others). At the end of 1975 they were 106 of 276 open cases; two years later they were 562 of 1,024. The figures in parentheses between the columns (157/13 and 363/51 for asbestos health) match the cases added and closed during each year, though the chart does not label them.

The plaintiff chart shows how the suits were changing. Factory workers were the largest group in 1975 (200 of 258 new plaintiffs). In 1977 shipyard workers, nearly absent before, made up 170 of 534. Insulation workers, the plaintiffs in early suits such as Borel v. Fibreboard, were 157.

About this copy

The binder holds only these "selected transparencies," not the full presentation or any record of who gave it.