Vandiver Brown to Dr. A. J. Lanza Returning the Galley Proof with Hobart's Comments (1934)

A copy of a one-page letter of December 21, 1934, from Vandiver Brown, Johns-Manville's attorney, to Dr. A. J. Lanza of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Brown returned the galley proof of Lanza's preliminary study "Effects of Inhalation of Asbestos Dust upon the Lungs of Asbestos Workers" with George Hobart's letter of December 15, setting out aspects of the study that Hobart "considers undesirable from the industry viewpoint." "All we ask is that all of the favorable aspects of the survey be included and that none of the unfavorable be unintentionally pictured in darker tones than the circumstances justify," Brown wrote.

What it shows

Brown told Lanza that "no one in our organization is suggesting for a moment that you alter by one jot or tittle any scientific facts or inevitable conclusions," and closed: "I feel confident we can depend upon you and Dr. McConnell to give us this 'break'." The letter completes J-M's lawyers' review of the study before it was published on January 4, 1935: Brown's comments of December 10 and Hobart's of December 15 went to Lanza with it.

In Johns-Manville's index

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

V. Brown letter to Dr. A. J. Lanza, 12/21/34, transmitting the galley proof of Dr. Lanza's preliminary study entitled "Effects of Inhalation of Asbestos Dust on the Lungs of Asbestos Workers" and a copy of Hobart's comments (Motley Document #207) on those aspects of the study which "he considers undesirable from the industry viewpoint." Brown asks Dr. Lanza to include "all of the favorable aspects of the survey" and not to paint the unfavorable aspects in "darker tones than the circumstances justify."

Related documents

• George S. Hobart to Vandiver Brown on the Metropolitan Life Galley Proof (1934)
• Vandiver Brown to Dr. A. J. Lanza with Comments on the Galley Proof (1934)

About this copy

This is document 208 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-001292 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-001292.