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CertainTeed

CertainTeed Corporation is an American building products manufacturer that, during much of the 20th century, produced asbestos-containing materials including asbestos-cement pipe, roofing products, siding, and insulation. The company has faced thousands of personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits from workers and homeowners exposed to its asbestos products. CertainTeed is now a subsidiary of the French multinational Saint-Gobain.

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Origin

The name comes from the company's early 20th-century slogan promising products of "Quality made Certain, Satisfaction guaranTeed." Founded in 1904 as General Roofing Manufacturing Company in East St. Louis, Illinois, it adopted the CertainTeed name in 1917 and was acquired by Saint-Gobain in 1988.

Corporate history

According to the 1986 Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases, a compilation by plaintiffs' attorneys, CertainTeed and Saint-Gobain formed a joint venture, CertainTeed St. Gobain Insulation Corp., in 1967; it was later merged into CertainTeed.1 When Keasbey & Mattison was liquidated in 1962 and its divisions sold, CertainTeed acquired its asbestos-cement pipe division.2 The book also lists CertainTeed Products Corp. as having acquired Productos Mexalit S.A., and as having bought the fiber glass assets of PPG Industries in July 1973.34

Significance in Asbestos Context

CertainTeed is one of the most frequently named defendants in asbestos-cement pipe cases, particularly involving plumbers, pipefitters, water and sewer workers, and laborers who cut, beveled, or installed transite-type pipe at construction sites and utility projects from roughly the 1950s through the early 1980s. The company's asbestos-cement pipe released significant respirable fibers when cut with power saws, and internal documents produced in litigation have shown corporate awareness of asbestos hazards well before warnings were added. Unlike many asbestos defendants, CertainTeed did not file for bankruptcy and continues to defend cases in the tort system rather than through a bankruptcy trust, which affects how a claim against it is pursued.

Asbestos-Cement Pipe, Transite, Johns-Manville, Product Identification, Solvent Defendant, Saint-Gobain

Notes

  • If you or a family member worked with water, sewer, gas, or irrigation pipe, try to identify the brand, color, and stamping on the pipe. CertainTeed pipe often bore manufacturer markings that help confirm product identification.
  • Preserve employment records, union records, project specifications, and photographs that place you at job sites where asbestos-cement pipe was cut, beveled, or installed.
  • Because CertainTeed remains an active tort defendant (not bankrupt), claims proceed in civil court rather than through a trust claim form. Your legal team will need fact witnesses or co-worker testimony to establish exposure.
  • Ask older co-workers whether they remember CertainTeed pipe specifically; corroborating witnesses can be critical when invoices and shipping records are no longer available.

References

  1. Barbara J. Peters and George A. Peters, Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases: Medical, Legal, and Engineering Aspects, vol. 2 (New York: Garland Law Publishing, 1986), p. 158.
  2. Barbara J. Peters and George A. Peters, Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases: Medical, Legal, and Engineering Aspects, vol. 2 (New York: Garland Law Publishing, 1986), p. 159.
  3. Barbara J. Peters and George A. Peters, Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases: Medical, Legal, and Engineering Aspects, vol. 2 (New York: Garland Law Publishing, 1986), p. 160.
  4. Barbara J. Peters and George A. Peters, Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases: Medical, Legal, and Engineering Aspects, vol. 2 (New York: Garland Law Publishing, 1986), p. 171.

Asbestos products

13 products our documents name CertainTeed as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

Pipe covering and block insulation (2)

Asbestos-cement pipe, board and sheet (4)

Cloth, tape and other textiles (1)

Other products (7)

Plants

Plants where asbestos products were made that the documents say CertainTeed ran.

Court cases

63 court decisions in our case-law library name CertainTeed as a defendant, newest first.

In our library

1 document in our library name CertainTeed, by collection.

Other library documents (1)

In the Union Carbide documents

CertainTeed is named in 29 Union Carbide documents dated 1959 to 2003 (29 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. 28 of them are published in our collection.

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for CertainTeed, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: CertainTeed Corporation · Certain-Teed · CertainTeed Corp · Certain-Teed Corporation · Certain-Teed Corp.

Where this comes from

This page brings together every document in our library that names CertainTeed, across collections. Titles and affiliations are taken from the documents themselves, and units and subsidiaries are grouped under the company they belong to.

Mentioned on this site

Cite this page

“CertainTeed.” AsbestosClaims.Law Library. https://asbestosclaims.law/library/organizations/certainteed.

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This page is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Every asbestos case turns on its own facts, exposure history, diagnosis, deadlines, available evidence, and applicable law. Reviewing this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, call 833-4-ASBESTOS for a free case review.