Armstrong Cork Company's Answers to Interrogatories in Copeland v. Armstrong Cork (1981)

Armstrong Cork Company's answers to the plaintiffs' first interrogatories in Lee Lloyd Copeland and Vaudeen Copeland v. Armstrong Cork Company (Case No. 79-8413, Circuit Court for Dade County, Florida), served April 21, 1981, with a cover letter of May 4, 1981, sending a copy to Rodger Wilson in Johns-Manville's legal department. Armstrong said it made two asbestos insulation products, LT Cork Covering (asbestos paper facing from 1956 until 1959) and Armaspray, a sprayed mineral wool insulation with amosite and chrysotile (1966 to 1968), and resold other makers' asbestos insulation from about 1941 through 1957, among them Unarco's Armabestos, Owens-Illinois's Kaylo and Ehret and Keasbey & Mattison 85% magnesia. It said it gave no warnings with its products, did no health testing before sale, and first became aware of an "alleged ascertainable relationship" between asbestos and disease in 1968.

What it shows

The answers give the sources of Armaspray's fiber (chrysotile from Lake Asbestos of Quebec, then amosite and chrysotile from North American Asbestos Corporation of Chicago) and explain why the fiber was switched in 1967 and 1968. Armstrong blamed the plaintiff for not using "mask or respiratory where available" and for ignoring warnings, while answering elsewhere that it knew of no warnings on its products. Attached schedules list Armstrong's products liability insurers from 1946 to 1981 (Standard Accident, Travelers, Aetna, Liberty Mutual and excess carriers); the Liberty Mutual policies for 1977 to 1979 carry a "$50,000 deductible on each asbestosis claim." Armstrong gave similar answers in a Texas case later that year: Armstrong World Industries' Answers to Interrogatories in Evilsizor v. Fibreboard Corporation (1981).

About this copy

The last three pages of the file, a schedule of workers' compensation claims for asbestosis filed against Armstrong Cork from 1952 to 1966, are left out because they give claimants' home addresses in a document less than 50 years old.