Deposition of Dr. Kenneth W. Smith in DeRocco v. Forty-Eight Insulation on Caution Labels for Celite and Insulation (1976)

Excerpts from the deposition of Dr. Kenneth Wallace Smith, J-M's former medical director, taken in Pittsburgh on January 13, 1976, in James Roy DeRocco and Andrew V. Carollo v. Forty-Eight Insulation, Inc., in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Smith testified that after a long strike at J-M's diatomaceous earth operation at Lompoc, California, in late 1950 or early 1951, the State of California closed the mine and mill because of the health hazard and let it reopen only under controlled conditions with frequent dust counts. He and Hugh Jackson then developed a caution label for Celite, the trademark for J-M's diatomaceous earth products, in the Manufacturing Chemists Association format; he placed it on the products in 1951 or 1952 ("1952, I would believe").

What it shows

Smith testified that at about the same time, "about the time of the Lompoc strike in '51, '52," he and Jackson recommended a caution label for bags of asbestos fiber and asbestos-containing insulation products to his superior, C. W. Hite, and to the division vice presidents, among them Don Hinmon and Arthur Elcenbast. The response, in what he called his interpretation of it, was: "Yes, we recognize the hazard. What is it going to cost us to do this and what are the potential hazards of assuming a label in workmen's compensation or public liability or such things as that." He said those were decisions for the corporate level, and that the managers of the insulation business were "knowledgeable, quite definitely" about the hazard of asbestos. The Celite label itself went out in 1952 (Jackson's memo to all plant managers).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Dr. Kenneth W. Smith testified on 1/13/76 (DeRocco) that labels were placed on Celite in approximately 1952 as an immediate consequence of action by California authorities and the strike at Lompoc. He further testified that at the same time consideration was given to using a "caution" label on asbestos-containing insulation products. Smith described the MCA classification as "Warning;" or if the hazard was a little greater "Caution;" or for an even greater hazard, "Danger." The suggestion concerning labeling of finished products was made to C.W. Hite and the division vice-presidents for asbestos-containing or celite-containing products. This included Hinmon and Elsenbast. Their response (per Smith) was "Yes, we recognize the hazard. What is it going to cost us to do this and what are the potential hazards of assuming a label in workman's compensation or public liability or such things as that?"

Related documents

• H. M. Jackson to All Plant Managers on Caution Labels for Celite (1952)
• Frederick M. Kriete of the California Department of Public Health to Dr. A. J. Lanza Enclosing the Bulletin on Diatomaceous Earth Pneumoconiosis (1952)
• J. P. Woodard to Arthur J. Vorwald on Labeling Diatomaceous Earth and the Delayed Saranac Studies (1952)