Szymanski v. Johns-Manville Corporation, J-M's Answer and the Plaintiff's Answers to Interrogatories (1946)

Two filings, eight pages in all, in Benjamin Szymanski's suit against Johns-Manville in the federal court in New Jersey, after the case was moved there from state court in 1946. In its answer, signed by Ralph E. Cooper of Hobart, Minard & Cooper, J-M denied negligence and pleaded that the disease was a risk Szymanski had "assumed" as part of his employment and that he "knew, or by the exercise of reasonable care on his part should have known," of its dangers. In his sworn answers to interrogatories, Szymanski listed his illnesses, doctors and chest X-rays from 1940 to 1946 and said he "was never informed" that his work was dangerous to his health.

What it shows

Szymanski's answers describe the conditions he blamed for his illness: ventilating equipment "not powerful enough to collect a sufficient amount of dust," windows kept closed in winter, no adequate "hat and mask" or respirator, no rotation out of the dusty work, and medical examinations that "failed to apprise or disclose to plaintiff the danger he was undergoing." He put his lost wages at about $5,800 and claimed total incapacity. J-M's answer also blamed his own negligence and that of fellow workers who failed to warn him of company safety rules. The complaint, the removal papers and two plant letters about the claim, including the plant doctor's view that the cause was tuberculosis rather than asbestosis, are on a separate page: Benjamin Szymanski v. Johns-Manville Corporation, Complaint, Removal Papers and Plant Letters (1946).