LeGrande v. Johns-Manville Products, Complaint and Summons (1957)

The complaint and jury demand in Frederick Le Grande v. Johns-Manville Products Corporation, Civil No. 741-57 in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey, with the summons dated July 17, 1957 (4 pages). Le Grande, a construction worker until September 1, 1956, said he had handled J-M products containing asbestos and had contracted "serious and crippling diseases" affecting his lungs and heart. He charged that J-M "knew or should have known" of the dangers, failed to provide "any or adequate warnings or instructions," and breached its warranty that the products were safe, and he asked for $500,000.

What it shows

Le Grande was an insulation worker employed by a contractor, H. W. Porter & Co., not by Johns-Manville. His suit is one of the early cases in which a worker outside the asbestos plants sued J-M as the maker of the products he used. The later papers in the case follow it through discovery to a settlement.

In Johns-Manville's index

Johns-Manville's legal department indexed the Motley 1,000 in 1984. Its index describes this document as follows:

Complaint filed in Frederick LeGrande v. Johns-Manville Products Corp. Complaint was filed on 7/17/57 in the U.S.D.C., New Jersey. J-M's Answer to Complaint filed in Frederick LeGrande v. Johns-Manville Products Corp., undated. LeGrande was a construction worker employed by H.W. Porter & Co., who filed one of the early insulation worker civil cases against J-M. The complaint was filed on 7/17/57. Prior to this time, LeGrande was awarded worker's compensation benefits for asbestosis from H.W. Porter. Additional documents regarding the LeGrande case are located in J-M Knowledge Seminar Workfile # 11 and Speake Trial Exhibit 5.

Related documents

• Judge Reynier J. Wortendyke, Jr., Ruling on Interrogatories in LeGrande v. Johns-Manville (1958)
• LeGrande v. Johns-Manville Products, Plaintiff's Interrogatories and J-M's Answers (1957)
• LeGrande v. Johns-Manville Products, Settlement Hearing Transcript (1959)

About this copy

This is document 598 of the Motley 1,000, from the set the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust's records facility certified as true copies, pages CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-001973 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-001976.