Clarence Borel v. Fibreboard Paper Products Corporation, Plaintiff's Original Complaint (1969)

The nine-page complaint filed October 20, 1969, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas at Beaumont (Civil No. 6449) by Clarence Borel, an insulator from Jefferson County, Texas, against Fibreboard Paper Products Corporation, Johns-Manville Products Corporation and nine other makers of asbestos insulation. Borel said he had worked as an insulator from 1936 to 1969, handling the defendants' products and breathing asbestos dust from others' work, and that he now had asbestosis, with shortness of breath, clubbing of the fingers and toes and a need for oxygen at all times. He sued on strict liability, breach of warranty and negligence, alleging among other things that the defendants failed to put "any warnings on their containers," and asked for $500,000 in damages and $500,000 in exemplary damages.

What it shows

This is the start of the case that, on appeal, became a landmark of asbestos law: an insulator suing the manufacturers of the products he used, rather than his employer, for failing to warn him. The full case file is at The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File (1969-1972). The complaint was filed in the same months J-M managers were debating the wording of warning labels for insulation products (Fenner's August 1969 guidelines, Sheckler's December 1969 memo). Borel's lawyer, Ward Stephenson of Orange, Texas, had brought the earlier Tomplait case against the same industry (Ball to Standel on Tomplait, 1968).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Borel v. J-M filed.

Related documents

• R. R. Standel, Jr. to Herbert M. Ball on Common Law Asbestosis Claims and the Tomplait Case (1968)