Manville Trust

The Manville Trust, formally the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust, pays asbestos injury claims against Johns-Manville and its related companies.^1,2 It was created in the company's Chapter 11 reorganization, which began in 1982, and it took over the company's asbestos health claims on November 28, 1988.^2,3 It pays each approved claim at a set share of its value, called the pro rata share, which is 5.6 percent as of September 2026.¹ Our Manville trust claims page describes it as the trust that set the model later asbestos trusts follow.¹

Johns-Manville and the 1982 bankruptcy

A 1959 Bureau of Mines survey called Johns-Manville "the largest producer in the world" of asbestos, with mines in Quebec, Ontario and Southern Rhodesia and a full range of asbestos products.⁴ The trust's own 1989 interrogatory answers trace the company to the H. W. Johns business founded in 1858, and say it began mining asbestos fiber with the purchase of the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Quebec, in 1916.^2,5 The same answers say the company stopped making most of its asbestos thermal insulation in 1972 or 1973, stopped mining and selling fiber on September 9, 1983, and stopped selling all asbestos products by 1985.²

Johns-Manville filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code on August 26, 1982.^3,6 The Second Circuit's 1988 opinion upholding the reorganization plan says that by the early 1980s the company had been named in about 12,500 lawsuits on behalf of more than 16,000 claimants, with new suits coming at 425 a month.³ The court wrote that Manville's own studies projected 50,000 to 100,000 more suits and an estimated liability of about $2 billion.³ It said the reason for the filing was "not a present inability to meet debts but rather the anticipation of massive personal injury liability in the future."³

The company's employee newspaper gave its own account in 1983: "the weight of current and future asbestos-health lawsuits forced the company to file for reorganization."⁵ The Bureau of Mines' Minerals Yearbook for 1982 noted the filing and reported that Manville and the news media expected asbestos supply to keep meeting U.S. demand.⁶ Documents in the Library were also produced in the bankruptcy case. Charles H. Roemer's affidavit about a 1942 or 1943 meeting with J-M's general counsel, Vandiver Brown, was sworn in September 1982 for an adversary proceeding in the Chapter 11 case.⁷

Creating the trust

Because many people exposed to Manville asbestos had not yet fallen ill, the bankruptcy court appointed a Legal Representative to speak for these future claimants.³ Manville proposed its Second Amended and Restated Plan of Reorganization on August 22, 1986, and the bankruptcy court confirmed it on December 22, 1986.⁸ Of 52,440 asbestos health claimants who returned ballots, 95.8 percent voted for the plan.³ The district court affirmed the confirmation on July 15, 1987, and the Second Circuit affirmed in 1988 in Kane v. Johns-Manville Corp.³

The Second Circuit called the trust "the cornerstone of the Plan," meant to pay "all asbestos health victims, both present and future."³ The court listed its funding as the proceeds of Manville's insurance settlements; cash, receivables and stock of the reorganized company; long-term notes; and the right to up to 20 percent of Manville's yearly profits for as long as needed.³ An injunction in the plan sent all asbestos health claims against the company to the trust instead.³

The trust assumed liability for all asbestos health claims against Manville and its related companies on November 28, 1988.² In lawsuits it could be sued as the "Manville Corporation Asbestos Disease Compensation Fund," and its stated purpose was "to provide fair and equitable compensation" to people injured by asbestos products the company sold.²

Too many claims: 1990 to 1995

The trust soon ran short of money. By March 30, 1990, it had received more than 150,000 claims, half again the highest number estimated when the plan was approved, and had settled 22,386 of them at an average of $42,000.⁸ The Second Circuit later wrote that by the spring of 1990 "the Trust was effectively out of money to pay its current and short term obligations."⁹ On November 30, 1990, federal district and bankruptcy judges in New York conditionally certified a class of trust beneficiaries and stayed lawsuits against the trust, apart from trials already under way.⁸ A special master had found the trust insolvent and a "limited fund," meaning it could not pay every claim in full.⁸

The settlement proposed in that class action sorted claims into two levels and capped payments, with a top value of $350,000 for mesothelioma.⁹ On December 4, 1992, the Second Circuit vacated the judgment approving it, holding among other things that the class needed separate subclasses for groups with conflicting interests.⁹ According to our trust page, payments stayed on hold from 1990 to 1995, when the trust's Trust Distribution Process took effect and began paying every claimant a 10 percent share.¹ When Congress added Section 524(g) to the Bankruptcy Code in 1994, it wrote the Manville design into law for later asbestos trusts.¹

How the trust pays claims

Under the trust's distribution rules, claims are handled in the order received.¹ Each is sorted into one of eight disease levels; most carry a scheduled value, from $350,000 for mesothelioma down to a $600 cash payment for the lowest level, while one lung cancer level is valued only case by case.¹ The claimant receives the pro rata share of that value, the trust's name for what other trusts call the payment percentage.¹ A claimant may ask for individual evaluation, which can reach $750,000 for mesothelioma, and may take a dispute to arbitration and then to trial.¹ Living mesothelioma claimants are moved to the front of the line.¹

The trust does not require a claimant to name a specific Manville product or job site.¹ For mesothelioma, a claimant needs a diagnosis and credible evidence of asbestos exposure before December 31, 1982; other disease levels have added length-of-exposure rules.¹ Claims are processed by the Claims Resolution Management Corporation, which the trust started in 1999.¹ The Library's Motley 1,000 documents come from a set that the trust's records facility certified as true copies.¹⁰

The pro rata share over time

The pro rata share has changed often.^1,11 It fell from 10 percent to 5 percent in June 2001, rose to 7.5 percent in March 2008, and was cut to 6.25 percent in August 2014 and 5.1 percent in November 2016.^1,11 It dropped to 4.3 percent on April 28, 2020, returned to 5.1 percent on February 15, 2021, and rose to 5.6 percent on September 2, 2026.^1,11 When the share rose in 2008, 2021 and 2026, earlier claimants received catch-up payments.¹ Of the years covered by its annual reports from 2003 to 2025, the trust paid the most in 2008, $419.1 million.¹¹

Unlike most trusts, Manville reports its finances to the bankruptcy court every quarter.¹ The trust ended 2025 with $563.3 million in net claimants' equity and paid $56.3 million in claims that year.¹¹ By March 31, 2026, it had paid $5.33 billion on 1,036,966 settled claims since 1988.¹

The trust in later court cases

Courts still apply the 1986 plan. In 2016 the bankruptcy court barred a Louisiana lawsuit against the successor to Manville Forest Products, a Manville subsidiary that had owned a paper mill, holding that the claim had to go to the Manville Trust.¹² In 2020 a federal district court affirmed, holding that an asbestos claim arises at first exposure, so exposure that began before the bankruptcy is covered by the plan even if it continued afterward.¹³

Related Terms

Section 524(g) Trust, Bankruptcy Trust Claim, Johns-Manville Corporation, Manville Trust Distribution Procedures, Trust Distribution Procedures, Payment Percentage, Scheduled Value, Asbestos Trust Fund, Chapter 11, Channeling Injunction, Future Claimants' Representative, Exigent Health Claim, FIFO Processing Queue, Individual Review

References

1. Manville Asbestos Trust Claims (Johns-Manville)
2. Manville Fund's Answers to Interrogatories in Gunn v. Celotex (1989), pp. 5–7
3. Kane v. Johns-Manville Corp. (2d Cir. 1988)
4. Asbestos: A Materials Survey (1959), Information Circular 7880, p. 65
5. Today: "125 Proud Years" (Manville, 1983)
6. Minerals Yearbook: Asbestos Chapters, 1982, p. 2
7. Charles H. Roemer's Affidavit and Testimony on a 1942–43 Meeting with Vandiver Brown
8. In re Joint Eastern & Southern Dist. Asbestos Lit. (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 1990)
9. In re Joint E. & So. Dist. Asbestos Litigation (2d Cir. 1992)
10. Asbestos Textile Institute Air Hygiene Committee on Dr. Cralley's Progress Report (1964): About this copy
11. Manville Asbestos Trust Annual Reports, 2003–2025
12. In re Johns-Manville Corp. (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2016)
13. In re Johns-Manville Corporation (S.D.N.Y. 2020)