Vandiver Brown and Hobart, Minard & Cooper on New Jersey Dust Disease Bills (1939)

Three letters from January 1939 between Vandiver Brown, Johns-Manville's attorney, and Hobart, Minard & Cooper, J-M's lawyers in Newark. On January 27 Brown asked Duane E. Minard to keep J-M posted on any bills putting "silicosis", "asbestosis" or "pneumoconiosis" on New Jersey's list of compensable occupational diseases, as Mr. Hobart had done in the past. The firm replied on January 30 with a list of new bills, including two (Assembly Bills 31 and 63) that would add pneumoconiosis to the list, with their sponsors and the members of the Assembly's insurance committee. On January 31 Brown asked for enough copies for J. E. Begert, the Manville plant manager.

What it shows

J-M was following dust disease legislation in New Jersey, home of its Manville plant, bill by bill. A week later Brown sent the two bills to A. R. Fisher with his views on J-M's opposition to making dust diseases compensable (his February 8 memo).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Letter from Vandiver Brown to Hobart, Minard & Cooper (J-M Workers' Compensation attorneys), dated 1/27/39. Brown asks law firm to keep him abreast of any new bills which would include silicosis, asbestosis, or pneumoconiosis on the list of compensable occupational diseases. Hobart, Minard & Cooper write back to V. Brown on 1/30/39, and describe the Ferster and Ward bills which include "pneumoconiosis" in the list of compensable diseases.