Wedgeworth and Hart v. Armstrong Cork, Plaintiffs' Interrogatories to the Defendants (1981)

Two sets of written questions (interrogatories) served on Johns-Manville Sales Corporation and some thirty other defendants in the consolidated Mississippi cases of Lelos Wedgeworth and Roy Latharn Hart against Armstrong Cork Company and others: a master set dated January 30, 1981, and an amended supplemental set dated April 14, 1981. Most of the questions asked about insulation products containing asbestos, the companies that made them, the type of fiber in each, and any warnings on the packages. One asked whether the defendant contended that a worker "was aware that exposure to insulation products manufactured by you containing asbestos was associated with pulmonary disease." Others asked about sales to the Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula and to insulation contractors.

What it shows

The questions show what shipyard workers' lawyers were trying to pin down in 1981: which products went into which ships at Ingalls, when warnings first appeared and in what words, and what each company knew about asbestos and disease, going back to 1930. The defendants' answers and the dispute over them are Motley document 884. See also Interrogatories.

In Johns-Manville's index

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

Plaintiffs' (Mrs. Frankie B. Ates, Mrs. Evelyn Buckely, James L. Jackson and Mrs. Marjorie Johnson) Interrogatories to Defendants (Amatex, Armstrong Cork, J-M, et al.) filed in Lelos Wedgeworth, et al. v. Armstrong Cork, et al. (U.S.D.C., Miss.), dated 4/14/81. Most of the questions concern insulation products. Plaintiffs in one interrogatory ask the Defendants to list each insurance carrier which has provided its company with workers' compensation insurance coverage for any period between 1/1/30 to the present. Plaintiffs also ask questions regarding knowledge of asbestos-health risks.

About this copy

This is document 883 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-004684 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-004704.