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Koppers Company

Koppers Company, Inc., of Pittsburgh, made coal-tar products, chemicals and plastics. In asbestos history it appears as the seller of an asphalt-saturated asbestos roofing felt, as a maker of coal-tar coatings named in insulation specifications, and as a customer for Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos, which by the 1970s some of its plants had stopped using. The library holds no bankruptcy or trust for Koppers; a 2006 Pennsylvania appeals decision calls Koppers Company the predecessor in interest to Beazer East, Inc., and Koppers Inc. was still being sued as a successor in 2018.

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History

The library's documents show Koppers as a Pittsburgh company with interests well beyond asbestos. In 1928 Johns-Manville's employee magazine reported a $20,000 order for underfloor duct for "the new Koppers Company Building," a 34-story tower in downtown Pittsburgh.10 In 1947 two Koppers Company men, H. B. Lose and John M. Crimmins, were among the representatives of the National Constructors' Association who presented a joint trade agreement to the asbestos workers' union.11 Excerpts from A History of Union Carbide Corporation, filed with a 1979 Cal-OSHA hearing record, say Koppers built a wartime butadiene plant to Union Carbide's design at Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and had a large styrene plant built during the war.1 In the late 1970s Asbestos reported Koppers' equipment businesses: the merger of Sprout, Waldron & Company of Muncy, Pennsylvania, into Koppers, and an agreement between Carborundum and Environmental Elements Corporation, a Koppers subsidiary, giving Carborundum rights to market the Koppers electrostatic precipitator in certain countries.12,13

Asbestos products

The library's product records hold one Koppers asbestos product, No. 15 Asphalt Saturated Asbestos Felt.4 Its roll label reads "No. 15 Asphalt Saturated Asbestos Felt," made by Koppers Company, Inc., Pittsburgh, and the trademark file gives first use on November 15, 1921.4

Koppers' coal-tar coatings appear in Union Carbide's insulation specifications. A 1957 specification for the South Charleston plant called for buried lines to be coated with Bitumastic No. 50 and referred to a Koppers Company bulletin.5 Union Carbide's 1962 thermal insulation manual lists Koppers Company, Inc., Tar Products Division, Pittsburgh, among its manufacturers, with Koppers Bitumastic and Bituplastic coatings in its tables of weather and vapor barriers.2 These documents do not say whether those coatings contained asbestos.

Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos

Union Carbide's sales records follow Koppers as a customer for Calidria, its short-fiber asbestos sold as a thickener for resins and coatings. A 1969 Union Carbide business plan listed Koppers among the "key accounts" for both polyesters and epoxies.14 A March 1969 Union Carbide memo said that Koppers, among others, had commented on the variability of its R-G 244 grade or asked for narrower specifications.15 Union Carbide brochures from about 1970 tested R-G 244 in several commercial polyester resins, including Koppers' "Koplac" 1000-23.3

Koppers' own plants began to turn away from it. A January 1973 Union Carbide report of a telephone call says Koppers asked to return 4,450 pounds of RG-244 because it could no longer use asbestos products under the new OSHA regulations.6 A Mr. Pratt of Koppers' Monroeville office told the Union Carbide representative that Koppers had eliminated RG-244 from its phenolic adhesive formulation, mainly because of the medical requirements, which included mandatory physical examinations and 20 years of record keeping; he said Koppers' past dust counts had been within the limits.6 In November 1977 a Union Carbide memo said Fred Tropp of Koppers "has done considerable work with RG-244 in the past" but that "their policy has been not to use asbestos," so Union Carbide had made no sales to Koppers "during recent years."7 The memo added that Tropp felt the new head of Koppers' safety and industrial hygiene department, Dr. Lawrence Lorenzo, had a different attitude toward materials such as asbestos than his predecessor, and the memo asked Dr. H. B. Rhodes of Union Carbide to telephone Lorenzo.7

Some Koppers coatings plants in the South still used small amounts of Calidria RG-144 in highway marker adhesive. A 1978 call report from Marietta, Georgia, says the plant's technical director told Union Carbide's salesman that Georgia required asbestos users to install a baghouse dust collector, and that Koppers was deciding whether to install one or move the adhesive to another plant.6 A 1978 call at Koppers' Irving, Texas, plant found RG-144 used only in the epoxy traffic marker adhesive the plant made; the salesman wrote that toxicology "shouldn't be a problem here as they monitor every six months and give physicals."6,16 By September 1981 the Marietta plant was not using any; the salesman recorded that the reasons given were Koppers' own policy decision, the lack of small local quantities, and a hard time with a Georgia EPA inspector.6 Union Carbide followed up with a letter saying RG-144 "can be safely used in compliance with federal and state regulations" and offering free air monitoring.17 That is the supplier's claim, not Koppers' view.

Other documents

A 1973 directory of users of asbestos fibers, in Union Carbide's files, lists Koppers' Metal Products Division, Hardinge Operation, in York, Pennsylvania, and Koppers Co. Inc. in Pittsburgh.18 Koppers' manager of industrial hygiene was among those listed at a 1974 Johns-Manville customer seminar on asbestos and health, and Koppers Company Inc. is listed among the organizations at the Asbestos Information Association/North America's sixth industry-government conference, whose proceedings appeared in 1981.19,20

In the case file of Borel v. Fibreboard, Clarence Borel testified that he had used Ruberoid pipe covering at a Koppers chemical plant, which he placed in about 1964 or 1965.21

Lawsuits

In Brown v. Avondale Industries, Inc. (E.D. La. 2018), the plaintiff alleged exposure while employed by several companies, including Koppers Performance Chemicals, Inc., and the defendants included "Koppers Inc., Individually and as Successor in Interest to Koppers Industries, Inc."8 The decision concerned Avondale's removal of the case to federal court, which the court sent back to state court; it did not rule on Koppers.8

In Chenot v. A.P. Green Services, Inc. (2006), the Pennsylvania Superior Court described the Koppers Company as "predecessor in interest to Beazer," meaning Beazer East, Inc., in a suit over insulation work done in 1951 by a contractor's helper at Koppers' Kobuta plant outside Pittsburgh; the court reversed a summary judgment that had been granted to Beazer.9 Later captions, such as that of Linder v. A.W. Chesterton Co. (Ill. App. Ct. 2020), name "Beazer East, Inc., Individually and as Successor to Koppers Company, Inc."; a caption gives the plaintiffs' description, not a court's finding.22

References

  1. UC-5356: Cal/OSHA Standards Board Summary of April 26, 1979 Fresno Public Hearing, with Excerpts from 'A History of Union Carbide Corporation' (1979), pp. 72, 95
  2. UC-4036: Thermal Insulation and Accessories Manual, Union Carbide Chemicals Company (1962), pp. 67, 125, 130
  3. UC-3557: Union Carbide Calidria Resin-Grade 144 Asbestos Product Brochure with R-G 244 Polyester Resin Performance Data (1970), p. 7
  4. Label: Koppers No. 15 Asphalt Saturated Asbestos Felt (Koppers Company, Inc.), with the product record
  5. UC-2366: Specifications for Thermal Insulation, South Charleston Plant (1957), p. 46
  6. UC-644: Union Carbide Call Reports on Koppers Company's Asbestos Use and RG-244/RG-144 Purchases (1973–1981)
  7. UC-646: G. L. Dickson to Dr. H. B. Rhodes on Koppers Company's Policy Against Using Asbestos in Polyester Resins (1977)
  8. Brown v. Avondale Industries, Inc. (E.D. La. 2018)
  9. Chenot v. AP Green Services, Inc. (Pa. Super. Ct. 2006)
  10. The J-M Circle, September 1928, p. 14
  11. The Asbestos Worker, October 1947, p. 4
  12. Asbestos, January 1977, p. 28
  13. Asbestos, January 1979, p. 32
  14. UC-811: F. D. Dexter to J. Clayton Stephenson Transmitting Calidria Asbestos Discussion Outline and 1969 Business Plan (1969), p. 14
  15. UC-174: R. E. Byrne, Jr. to J. L. Myers on R-G244 Quality Control (1969)
  16. UC-4795: Jack E. Walsh Call Report on Koppers Company, Irving, Texas (1978)
  17. UC-645: Koppers Company (Marietta, Georgia) Call Report Notes and J. E. Walsh Letter to Mary Ann Alderman on RG144 Availability (1981), p. 2
  18. UC-935: Users of Asbestos Fibers: Directory of Manufacturers by Product Category (1973), pp. 12, 19
  19. AIA-112: Johns-Manville Corporation, A Condensation of Environmental Facts on Asbestos and Health, with Customer Seminar Attendee Lists (1974), p. 43
  20. AIA-122: Asbestos Information Association/North America Sixth Industry-Government Conference Proceedings (1981), p. 3
  21. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File, Deposition of Clarence Borel, day 2, p. 73
  22. Linder v. A.W. Chesterton Co. (Ill. App. Ct. 2020), caption

Asbestos products

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

Court cases

1 court decision in our case-law library name Koppers Company as a defendant.

In our library

1 document in our library name Koppers Company, by collection.

Other library documents (1)

In the Union Carbide documents

Koppers Company is named in 10 Union Carbide documents dated 1969 to 1981 (10 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for Koppers Company, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: Koppers Company, Inc · Koppers Co · Koppers.

Where this comes from

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

Cite this page

“Koppers Company.” AsbestosClaims.Law Library. https://asbestosclaims.law/library/organizations/koppers-company.

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