Gordon R. Pate to R. R. Standel, Jr. on Defending the Tomplait Case (1968)

A two-page letter, marked privileged, of May 24, 1968, from Gordon R. Pate, a Beaumont, Texas lawyer defending Johns-Manville, to R. R. Standel, Jr., of J-M's legal department, on Civil Action No. 5402, Claude J. Tomplait v. Combustion Engineering, Inc., et al. Pate reports that trial was set for the week of September 23, 1968. He recalls J-M's position, from Standel's letter of May 8, that "it was not until subsequent to 1962 that the industry finally determined that a substantial risk existed in working around insulating products containing asbestos," and lists questions the defense would have to meet.

What it shows

Pate's first question is why the risk was not recognized until 1962, since Jim Board, president of Sabine Insulators in Orange, Texas, had told the defense lawyers "that the problem was recognized in 1946 when he graduated from Engineering School and went to work for Johns-Manville." His second: "If the problem was recognized in 1962, why did the industry wait until 1964 to give any warnings or place precautionary labels on various products?" He also notes that a doctor had told Tomplait in 1961 to stop working as an insulator "if he wanted to live," and that he had kept working. The letter shows the questions about knowledge and warnings that the first insulator lawsuits put to J-M. See the Tomplait case file and Standel's July 25 memo on the case.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Gorden R. Pate writes to R.R. Standel, Jr., 5/24/68, re Civil Action No. 5402 - Claude J. Tomplait vs. Combustion Engineering, Inc., et al. Pate outlines possible defense strategies for the Tomplait case, an insulator case. His questions include: "If the problem (of risk to insulators) was recognized in 1962, why did the industry wait until 1964 to give any warnings or place precautionary labels on various products?"