Manville's Asbestos Litigation Chronology, 1968 to 1982 (1982)

An eight-page "Asbestos Litigation Chronology" stamped "Privileged and Confidential," prepared by Manville's lawyers in the fall of 1982. It is unsigned and undated, but its last entry is the Herrmann shareholder complaint filed in Denver federal court on September 8, 1982, so it was written after that. Year by year from August 1968, it lists what Johns-Manville's board of directors heard about asbestos and health beside what the company told investors in each Form 10-K and registration statement, from the first disclosure of 29 asbestos suits in March 1974 to 9,300 cases brought by 12,800 plaintiffs in March 1982, and on to the Chapter 11 filing of August 26, 1982.

What it shows

The chronology is the index to this binder: each entry rests on board minutes, an SEC filing or a Legal Department presentation that follows it. Board meetings come first in most years. They record the board's support for Dr. I. J. Selikoff's research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1968, the reports on falling exposure limits from 1969 to 1972, and, from 1978 on, John A. McKinney's reports on the lawsuits, insurance and legislation. Beside them it sets the company's public statements, filing by filing. The suit count rises from 29 (March 1974) to 57, 124, 271, 623, 1,370, 2,857, 5,800 and 9,300 (March 1982). Each 10-K through 1980 said the litigation would have no material adverse effect, or that insurance was adequate. In February 1981 the auditors, Coopers & Lybrand, qualified Manville's financial statement because of the asbestos litigation, and the March 1981 10-K said the ultimate liability "can't be estimated with any degree of reliability." The last entries cover the Special Committee's August 1982 meetings, the board's vote on August 25, the Chapter 11 petition the next day, and the Herrmann complaint.

The entries summarize their exhibits, sometimes selectively. Footnotes give the company's account of the history: that the U.S. Public Health Service called 5 million particles per cubic foot "safe" in 1938, that Manville "immediately undertook a voluntary labeling program" in 1964 after Selikoff's findings, and that the federal government "waited until July 1972" for its first labeling standard. The April 1970 entry says all asbestos fiber shipped in the United States and Canada carried a caution label; the minutes it rests on add that labels on overseas shipments had "aroused customer opposition and had not been accomplished so far." One entry, for January 1977, notes that "The Herrmanns, Denver Court plaintiffs," had bought 100 shares of Manville stock.

Editor's note: where the chronology misstates its exhibits

Checked against the documents bound behind it, the chronology gets four things wrong:

• October 15, 1969. It says the 12-fiber standard would be lowered to 6. The minutes record a standard of 35 fibers being revised to an interim 12, with 6 and then 2 expected later.
• March 1974. It dates a board meeting March 4, 1974. The minutes are dated March 1.
• May 1976. It says the Form S-7 registered 2.5 million shares. The filing's cover registers 2,000,000.
• March 1981. It calls $13,000 "the 1980 cost" per claim. The 10-K gives $13,000 as the company's historical average for all years before 1980; the 1980 average was $23,300.

Read every entry

The history page The Johns-Manville Litigation Chronology, 1968–1982 lists every entry, year by year, with a link to the document behind it.