Owens-Illinois's Responses to Plaintiffs' First Interrogatories in Bexley v. Armstrong World Industries (1988)

Owens-Illinois's answers to the plaintiffs' first interrogatories in Bexley v. Armstrong World Industries and eight related cases in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, served on March 25, 1988 and sworn by Assistant Secretary A. H. Smith. Owens-Illinois says it sold its Kaylo insulation business to Owens-Corning Fiberglas effective April 30, 1958 and limits its answers to the years it made Kaylo. It gives Kaylo as "between 13% and approximately 20% asbestos," mainly chrysotile with amosite "to a lesser extent."

What it shows

Owens-Illinois points to the Saranac Laboratory papers but says the knowledge of the day was "a recognized safe exposure level" (Nos. 13, 19); it says it had no reason to believe Kaylo was hazardous and no claims before 1968, and that "it does not appear that any warning concerning asbestos was given" (No. 25). The word asbestosis does not appear in its answers. Compare Owens Corning's 1997 answers, which say Owens-Illinois told it in 1956 that the Saranac animals "could develop a mild asbestosis reaction."

About this copy

Exhibit I (pp. 28–33) lists the journals, books and reports in O-I's industrial hygiene library. Exhibit II (pp. 34–77) is Kaylo Division correspondence from 1950 to 1953 about distributor commissions; some pages are nearly illegible. The affidavit is dated February 4, 1988, seven weeks before service.