Howard G. Wachenfeld to F. G. O'Connor of Travelers Insurance on the LeGrande Defense (1958)

A five-page letter of December 15, 1958, from a lawyer defending Johns-Manville in LeGrande v. Johns-Manville to F. G. O'Connor, supervising adjuster at the Travelers Insurance Company in Newark, New Jersey, reporting on a December 2 conference at J-M's New York office with A. L. Fisk, Dr. Kenneth Smith and A. M. Schmidt of J-M. The plaintiff was an insulation applicator. The lawyer listed lines of defense: that no other maker put warnings on similar products, that a group of J-M applicators in Detroit had shown no asbestosis, and that a 1954 J-M manual had warned applicators "to avoid breathing any of the dust." He wrote that this warning "was apparently the result of Johns-Manville's medical staff having kept on the look-out for dangerous consequences to applicators."

What it shows

The letter adds that in 1954 Dr. Smith and Dan Cruise had tried to run X-ray tests on a group of applicators, but the test "was never conducted because it was impossible to keep a check on any one man" as they changed jobs so often. The aim, the lawyer wrote, was to raise a jury question whether J-M "acted reasonably and prudently in failing to recommend protective measures or otherwise to warn applicators of the hazard of contracting asbestosis." J-M's interrogatory answers in the same case are in A. M. Schmidt's October 1958 letter.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Letter to F.G. O'Conner of Travelers Insurance Company from Howard G. Woodenfeld (?), 12/15/58 re Le Grande v. Johns-Manville. Woodenfeld discusses a 1954 manual given to applicators of Manville products with the warning to avoid breathing any of the dust. He goes on to state: "This warning was apparently the result of Johns-Manville's medical staff having kept on the look-out for dangerous consequences to applicators. Either Dr. Anthony Lanza or Mr. Van Brown (former house counsel) should be able to tell us what steps have been taken by Johns-Manville with regard to investigating the possibility of occupational diseases among applicators resulting from the use of Johns-Manville products."
Woodenfeld discusses efforts by Dr. Smith and Dan Cruise to study the effects of Johns-Manville products on applicators. The study was not completed due to the rapid turnover of applicators in the field.