Roger Hackney Memo on Quebec Workmen's Compensation and Future Asbestosis Costs (1948)

A two-page memo of July 28, 1948, from Roger Hackney at Johns-Manville's headquarters to Soutar at Asbestos, Quebec, on how to pay the $186,000 provisional premium due to the Quebec Workmen's Compensation Commission. Most of it concerns taxes and accounting for a reserve fund of refunds held by the commission. Hackney also writes, "I realize that you and George feel asbestosis claims may mount in the future and become a heavy burden," and that costs might "bunch up" from cases "that perhaps should have been taken care of in earlier years but were not because of uncertainties that still surround compensation for asbestosis."

What it shows

Hackney proposed that future asbestosis costs be "anticipated and spread evenly" by charging part of each year's earnings to a bookkeeping reserve, instead of leaving cash with the commission. By the summer of 1948, men in J-M's Canadian operation (Soutar and George K. Foster) expected asbestosis compensation claims in Quebec to grow, and the company's financial staff were planning for that cost.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Roger Hackney (J-M Treasurer) writes Soutar, 7/28/48, at CJM concerning Soutar's and George Foster's concern that insurance financial planning should provide for a substantial future increase in asbestosis claims. Copied to A.R. Fisher, A. M. Schmidt, L.H. Morgan, Alvin Brown.