Approved Site List

An approved site list is a list kept by an asbestos bankruptcy trust of worksites, such as plants, refineries and shipyards, where the trust accepts that the company's asbestos products were present during set dates. A claimant who worked at a listed site during those dates can often use that to help prove exposure without other product evidence.

Origin

Asbestos trusts built site lists from the company's own sales and shipping records, earlier litigation and evidence collected in prior claims. They give the trust a consistent way to handle thousands of claims from workers at the same large sites. Each trust keeps its own list, and lists grow or change as new evidence is accepted.

Significance in Asbestos Context

Proving that you were around a particular company's product decades ago is often the hardest part of an asbestos claim. An approved site list helps: if your work history places you at a listed site during the listed years, the trust usually accepts that as evidence of exposure to its products, though it still requires the rest of its exposure and medical criteria. The site must be on that trust's list, and the dates must overlap with your work there; working at the site outside the listed years generally does not count. Exposure to the trust company's own products usually must be before the trust's cutoff, typically 12/31/1982 or 12/31/1986. If a site is not listed, a claim can still go forward with other proof, such as a sworn statement from you or a coworker naming the product, but that takes more work. Lawyers compare a client's full work history against the site lists of dozens of trusts.

Example Sentence

Because the refinery appeared on the trust's approved site list for 1965 through 1978, his fourteen years there were accepted as exposure to the company's pipe insulation.

Related Terms

Exposure Affidavit, Work History, Product Identification, Bankruptcy Trust Claim, Trust Distribution Procedures, Coworker Testimony

Notes

• Write down every worksite, with the years you worked there and your job; even short jobs can match a trust's list.
• Pay stubs, union records and Social Security earnings statements help confirm dates at a site.
• A site missing from a list does not end a claim; ask your lawyer about other ways to prove exposure.