Standard Asbestos Manufacturing & Insulating Company

Standard Asbestos Manufacturing & Insulating Company was a Kansas City, Missouri, insulation maker whose products included Simco insulating cements, a Simco weather coating and Simco mineral wool blankets and, for a time, air cell pipe covering.¹⁶ It was a defendant in the Texas cases Borel v. Fibreboard and Potter v. Fibreboard and settled with both plaintiffs in 1971.²³ It is a different company from the Standard Asbestos Manufacturing Company of Chicago, which Baldwin-Ehret-Hill bought in 1963.⁴⁵ We found no record in the library of how the Kansas City company ended.

Which "Standard Asbestos"?

At least four insulation firms used the name "Standard Asbestos" in the library's documents. This entry concerns the Kansas City company that made Simco products. In sworn answers filed in 1969 and 1970, it said it was incorporated in Missouri on November 9, 1918, with its home in Kansas City, and that it and its predecessor had been in the business 69 years.⁶²⁶ It named W. Ryder of Kansas City as its president and chairman of the board.⁷ As early as September 1919, an advertisement for The Franklin Mfg. Company, a maker of 85% magnesia covering, listed "The Standard Asbestos Mfg. & Insulating Co." as its Kansas City agency.⁸

The others are separate firms:

• Chicago. Asbestos magazine described the Standard Asbestos Mfg. Company of Chicago in 1931 as a maker of asbestos paper and "Aircell" and a contractor and distributor of pipe and boiler coverings.⁹ In 1942 it said Michael J. O'Malley had founded the company 35 years earlier.¹⁰ In November 1963 the magazine reported that Baldwin-Ehret-Hill had acquired the Standard Asbestos Manufacturing Company of 860 West Evergreen Avenue, Chicago, founded in 1906, maker of low-pressure insulation including wool felt and sponge felt.⁴ According to the 1986 Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases, a compilation by plaintiffs' attorneys, "Standard Asbestos Manufacturing Co." was acquired by Baldwin-Ehret-Hill in 1963. The book gives no city, but that name and year match the Chicago company's sale reported in Asbestos, not the Kansas City company, which was still answering lawsuits under its own name in 1969–71.⁵⁴⁶
• Cleveland. A Standard Asbestos Mfg. Company of Cleveland was organized in 1931 to sell the Chicago company's products, with Matthew J. Fitzgerald, one of the Chicago company's heads, as its secretary and treasurer.⁹
• Detroit. Asbestos reported in 1928 that a Standard Asbestos Manufacturing Company in Detroit had been organized in 1921 by Dave M. Berk to make pipe and boiler coverings.¹¹

Some documents name only "Standard Asbestos," and it is not always possible to tell which company is meant.

Simco products

The company described its products in nearly identical answers to interrogatories in the Potter case in December 1969 and the Borel case in March 1970.¹²⁷

• Simco Test-Best mineral wool blankets, made "to a certain extent" throughout the period asked about.
• Simco #9 one-kote cement, a high-temperature bonding cement for fittings, flanges and valves, first made in about 1957.
• Simco #55 high-temperature cement, an all-purpose covering cement for heating equipment, made throughout the period.
• Simco Weather-Kote, a ready-mixed protective coating for insulation, applied with a trowel.
• Air cell pipe covering, of which "a small amount" was made for several years from about 1945; the company said it no longer made it.

The company said its products were sold through distributors, that the cement came in sacks and Weather-Kote in drums, and that they were probably used more in the Midwest than anywhere else.¹²²⁸ The answers do not give the asbestos content of each product. In March 1970 the company's lawyer sent the Potter plaintiff's lawyer "four (4) samples of asbestos products produced by" the company. He wrote that the pipe covering was no longer made and that he could not find out when it was last made, "although everyone seems to think" it was in about 1955.¹³

The Travelers Insurance Company's 1980 seminar binder repeats the same product list in its Standard Asbestos section.¹⁴ Travelers drew its sheets mostly from defendants' own answers to interrogatories in the Long Beach Naval Shipyard suits, and its cover memo warns that some may be self-serving. One wording differs: the Travelers page calls Test-Best "an asbestos free insulating blanket," while the 1969 and 1970 answers call it simply "an insulating blanket."¹⁴¹ The Travelers page also lists other makers' products under the heading "1-A," among them Pabco 85% Magnesia, Johns-Manville calcium silicates and Owens-Corning Fiberglas products; the page does not say what the list stands for.¹⁴ Travelers' July 1981 products printout lists Simco 9, Simco 55 and Simco Test-best as cements, and Aircell as pipe covering, under the name "Standard Asbestos" with no city.¹⁵¹⁶ Those rows are the printout's claims; the company itself called Test-Best a blanket, and the Aircell row does not show which Standard Asbestos company is meant.

Other companies' records show what the Kansas City firm bought. Owens-Corning's Travelers sheet lists sales to "Standard Asbestos, Kansas City, MO," in 1958, 1959 and each year from 1962 through 1972; its table has no columns for 1960 or 1961.¹⁷ Fibreboard's sheet lists sales to "Standard Asbestos," without a city, each year from 1957 through 1971 except 1968; it says most of its 1972 sales to Standard were asbestos-free but some may have contained asbestos.¹⁸ Atlas Asbestos Company's sheet says it had no record of sales to the company.¹⁹

What the documents show

In its 1969 and 1970 answers the company said it had warned its own employees to avoid inhaling dust of any kind, including dust from its products, and that its employees wore masks around excessive dust.¹² It said it had made no studies of its own and did not take dust samples.¹²²⁰ In February 1970 it said the only dust count it knew of was one taken at its Kansas City plant by Dr. Edward G. Miter, associated with Employers Mutual Liability Insurance Company of Wisconsin. It said the results were not made available to the company, and that the exact date was not known but the test was probably made between October 1, 1962, and October 1, 1963.²¹ In the same answers it said it "recognizes that asbestos causes asbestosis," but could not give a date for when it came to that view. It said it had assumed that anyone using asbestos would avoid breathing too much of it and that contractors would give their workers a safe place to work.²² Asked what led it to start putting warnings on its containers, and why it had not done so sooner, it replied that it had answered "no" to the earlier question about warnings, so the question did not apply.²¹²²

Clarence Borel testified in an April 1970 deposition that he had used Simco products at a refinery in Lake Charles, Louisiana.²³ In September 1971 the Potter plaintiff answered the company's interrogatories under oath. He said he used its air cell pipe covering at the Consolidated shipyard in Orange, Texas, during World War II, and that he recalled using Simco #55 and Simco #9 cements. In later answers he placed the cements on plant jobs in Orange, near Port Neches and, he believed, at Westlake, Louisiana, without recalling who employed him then.²⁴²⁹ The company's own answers date Simco #9 from about 1957 and its air cell covering from about 1945.¹

The company settled both cases. An interlocutory judgment filed in February 1971 records that it paid $4,225.55 to settle the Borel claims and was dismissed from that case.² A second, signed in November 1971, records that it paid $3,228.54 to settle the Potter claims, including an insurer's claim.³ Philip Carey's 1970 answers in the Borel case also named "Standard Asbestos Manufacturing & Insulating Company" among the makers of asbestos paper insulation products like Carey's own; those answers give no city.²⁵

Bankruptcy and trust

Our trust pages list no asbestos trust for this company, and we found no record in the library of what became of it after the 1970s.

References

1. The Potter v. Fibreboard Case File: Standard Asbestos answers to plaintiff's interrogatories (December 1969), p. 1
2. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File: Settlements with Standard Asbestos and Owens-Corning (1971), p. 1
3. The Potter v. Fibreboard Case File: Interlocutory judgment on the Standard Asbestos settlement (1971), p. 1
4. Asbestos, November 1963, p. 17
5. N. 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. 161.
6. The Potter v. Fibreboard Case File: Standard Asbestos answers to plaintiff's interrogatories (December 1969), p. 5
7. The Potter v. Fibreboard Case File: Standard Asbestos answers to plaintiff's interrogatories (December 1969), p. 7
8. Asbestos, September 1919, p. 11
9. Asbestos, June 1931, p. 12
10. Asbestos, February 1942, p. 16
11. Asbestos, June 1928, p. 15
12. The Potter v. Fibreboard Case File: Standard Asbestos answers to plaintiff's interrogatories (December 1969), p. 2
13. The Potter v. Fibreboard Case File: Standard Asbestos letter to plaintiff regarding samples (1970), p. 1
14. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Standard Asbestos Manufacturing & Insulating Co. Product Information, p. 2
15. Travelers Asbestos Products Printout, July 1981, p. 24
16. Travelers Asbestos Products Printout, July 1981, p. 16
17. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Owens-Corning Fiberglas Product Information, p. 5
18. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Fibreboard Corporation (Pabco) Product Information, p. 4
19. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Atlas Asbestos Company Product Information, p. 6
20. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File: Standard Asbestos answers to interrogatories (March 1970), p. 3
21. The Potter v. Fibreboard Case File: Standard Asbestos answers to plaintiff's interrogatories (February 1970), p. 2
22. The Potter v. Fibreboard Case File: Standard Asbestos answers to plaintiff's interrogatories (February 1970), p. 3
23. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File: Deposition of Clarence Borel, day 2 (1970), p. 13
24. The Potter v. Fibreboard Case File: Plaintiff's answers to Standard Asbestos interrogatories (1971), p. 1
25. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File: Philip Carey answers to interrogatories (1970), p. 15
26. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File: Standard Asbestos answers to interrogatories (March 1970), p. 5
27. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File: Standard Asbestos answers to interrogatories (March 1970), p. 1
28. The Potter v. Fibreboard Case File: Standard Asbestos answers to plaintiff's interrogatories (December 1969), p. 3
29. The Potter v. Fibreboard Case File: Plaintiff's answers to Standard Asbestos interrogatories (1971), p. 2