Anna Pirskowski's Suit Against Johns-Manville, Federal Court File (1929)

The federal court file in Anna Pirskowski's suit against Johns-Manville Corporation in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey, begun with a summons dated May 8, 1929, as copied and certified by the National Archives in 1980 (30 pages, many of them archive certificates and docket covers). Pirskowski, who had worked at J-M's Manville, New Jersey, plant as a minor under the name Anna Urbanick until 1922, said she had inhaled "particles of said asbestos and other dangerous articles," that J-M failed to provide masks or proper ventilation, and that she would be disabled for life; she asked $50,000. J-M, through Hobart & Minard, pleaded the two-year time limit for suing, then that she had assumed the risk, was careless, and failed to use "the mask and other appliances provided by the defendant." The case was settled and discontinued on June 13, 1934.

What it shows

Her lawyer was Samuel Greenstone of Newark, who in 1933 negotiated the settlement of a group of asbestosis cases against J-M (Greenstone to Hobart & Minard, 1933). J-M's amended answer of 1929 pleaded that it provided masks for the work and that a worker who did not use them was to blame. The same papers are in the Motley 1000 collection as Pirskowski v. Johns-Manville, Court Papers (1929).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

First civil cases versus J-M for asbestosis (NJ) (Pirskowski). Documents incomplete but appear to be asbestos textile workers. Correspondence indicate claims were referred to insurer (Travelers). See 1933 entry re settlements.

Editor's note: J-M's description calls these asbestosis cases by textile workers that were referred to Travelers. The papers in this file do not use the word asbestosis (the complaint alleges a "malignant disease"), do not say what work the plaintiff did, and contain no correspondence with Travelers.

Related documents

• Samuel Greenstone to Hobart & Minard on Settling the J-M Asbestosis Cases (1933)