Vandiver Brown to S. A. Williams on Accepting the Illinois Occupational Diseases Act (1936)

Two memoranda of October 21, 1936, from Vandiver Brown, Johns-Manville's attorney, to S. A. Williams, a J-M vice-president, four pages in all. In the first, Brown passes on the unanimous advice of his Illinois advisers that J-M file a notice accepting the new Occupational Diseases Act. Only businesses without an appreciable occupational disease hazard were hesitating, he writes: "Obviously, we do not fall into that classification." The choice, he says, is whether "to have a jury assess damages in cases of silicosis or asbestosis" or to pay only the rates the Act set: "Thus stated, the answer is obvious."

What it shows

In the second memo Brown repeats that J-M "can avoid all potential future liability" to employees with early dust disease by discharging them within sixty days after October 1, 1936. He says he did not "recommend that such employees be discharged wholesale." One adviser, Mr. Clarke, warned that the Illinois Supreme Court might change the law if "hundreds of them should be relegated to the scrap heap by callous employers taking advantage of their temporary legal immunity." Brown then points to another way: moving such employees to work without dust exposure before the sixty days ran out would protect the company just as firing them would. Both memos follow his July advice and his August memo on waivers; an unsigned memo of the same day deals with the claims already pending.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

In a memorandum to S.A. Williams, 10/21/36, Brown encourages J-M to file a Notice of Acceptance of the New Occupational Disease Act. He states that those hesitating from filing are those companies with no occupational disease hazard. "Obviously, we do not fall into that classification." Brown states that it would be more advantageous to be bound by the compensation rates prescribed by the Act than have a jury assess damages.

In another memorandum of the same date to S.A. Williams, Brown discusses how J-M can avoid potential future liability for those employees with incipient dust disease. The new Act provides that employees have no right under the Act unless they have been exposed during 60 days after its effective date. They also have no common law right. Brown states that J-M could discharge these employees within the 60 days. If companies did this, though, courts would be likely to change the law. Brown also points out that J-M could escape liability by moving these employees to non hazardous work during the 60 day period, because an employer "shall not be liable unless he has exposed the employee 'during a period of sixty days or more after the effective date of the Act'."