Deposition of Wilbur L. Ruff in Browner v. Johns-Manville on Not Telling Workers Their Findings (1978)

Nine pages from the deposition of Wilbur Leslie Ruff, a former J-M plant manager, taken February 14, 1978, in Browner v. Johns-Manville (Contra Costa County Superior Court, No. 162,127). Ruff testified that while he managed the Pittsburg, California, plant it was "company policy" for the plant doctor, Dr. Kent Wise, "not to discuss his findings with the employee," because "the records were the property of Johns-Manville Product Corporation" and it was up to the industrial relations department to tell the worker of any problem. He said the policy changed "between 1970 and 1972."

What it shows

Ruff said Dr. Kenneth Smith, J-M's medical director, had told him that he instructed Dr. Wise that discussing findings "was the responsibility of Johns-Manville" and not the physician's. Ruff agreed that in an earlier statement he had called the old policy "hush-hush." The change was announced by Dr. Smith and other executives who visited the plants and said "from that date on" J-M would tell the employees involved of their condition, through the industrial relations manager. At the Manville plant, Ruff said, this was done after Smith's dismissal by Dr. George Wright and Cliff Sheckler. An earlier written procedure on the same subject is the 1956 Waukegan notes on telling pulmonary cases.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Ruff testifies on 2/14/78 J-M's "hush-hush" policy (non-disclosure of individual employee's occupational disease to the worker) ended about this time.