Association of Casualty and Surety Executives Pamphlets on Occupational Disease Compensation (1935)

Two short pamphlets from the Association of Casualty and Surety Executives, a New York insurance trade group, kept in a file marked "Dust Legislation": "Industrial Life and Health Insurance Under the Guise of Compensation for Occupational Diseases" (February 11, 1935), aimed at New York bills to make all occupational diseases compensable, and "Perils in Measures for Compensation for Occupational Diseases" (February 28, 1935). Both argue that because diseases like silicosis "do not manifest themselves until after many years of exposure," a new compensation law would saddle industry at the start with a "large volume of 'incurred liabilities'" for disease contracted in the past. The February 28 pamphlet says asbestosis "belongs in the same category" as silicosis and ends with an eight-point list of what a satisfactory law should contain.

What it shows

The insurers' position matches the one Vandiver Brown, Johns-Manville's attorney, was taking the same winter: a law listing the covered diseases, a minimum period of exposure, time limits on claims, and special limits on payments for silicosis and similar diseases (Brown to Lompoc, March 1935). F. Robertson Jones, the Association's general manager, had spoken at the January Mellon Institute symposium Brown attended (Brown's memorandum). The pamphlets show that insurers already expected long-delayed dust disease claims and wanted them limited by law.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Publications dated 2/28/35 by the Association of Casualty and Surety Executives, of New York City, entitled "Perils and Measures for Compensation for Occupational Diseases" and "Industrial Life and Health Insurance Under the Guise of Compensation for Occupational Diseases" discuss the insurance industry viewpoint regarding the revision of the Workers' Compensation laws. They express special concern regarding compensation for silicosis and asbestosis, since they are diseases which do not manifest themselves until after many years of exposure and at the start of such a law, industry will have imposed upon it a large volume of "incurred liabilities" for disabilities and deaths to result in the future from diseases contracted in the past. They state that silicosis and other occupational diseases have been the subjects for specific damage suits and in "quite a number of states, such litigation has developed into a serious and demoralizing racket." The group is against compensation for pneumoconiosis cases because they would "saddle industry with a crushing burden of reparation for ills for which the industry is not truly responsible." A list of recommendations are made from the insurance industry point of view which they feel address the situation.

Editor's note: J-M's description dates both pamphlets February 28, 1935. "Industrial Life and Health Insurance Under the Guise of Compensation for Occupational Diseases" is dated February 11, 1935, and the other pamphlet's title is "Perils in Measures for Compensation for Occupational Diseases."