Abex Corporation

Abex Corporation, earlier the American Brake Shoe and Foundry Company and then the American Brake Shoe Company, made cast metal, railroad and hydraulic products and, through its American Brakeblok division, asbestos brake lining. Its later successor in the courts was Pneumo Abex, and today asbestos claims for Abex brakes are paid by the Federal-Mogul asbestos trust.

Draft. The history on this page was written from the documents in our library and has not yet been reviewed by a person.

History

Asbestos, the industry's trade journal, reported in June 1943 that the American Brake Shoe & Foundry Co. had shortened its name to American Brake Shoe Co. by dropping "and Foundry."¹ The same note said the American Brakeblok of Detroit, brake lining makers, was a division of the company.¹ In August 1951 the journal reported that the first half of that year had brought the highest sales in the company's 49-year history.⁶ Its news items from the 1950s and 1960s also name the company's National Bearing, Ramapo Ajax, Kellogg and Amsco divisions; the Kellogg Division made air compressors.⁷

By 1966 the journal was listing Abex Corporation.⁸ Kempton Dunn, elected president of American Brake Shoe in 1954, was listed in 1968 as chairman and chief executive officer of Abex Corporation.^9,10 In October 1968 the journal reported that Illinois Central Industries, the parent company of the Illinois Central Railroad, and Abex Corporation had agreed in principle to combine in an exchange of stock valued at about $160 million. It described Abex as a producer of cast metals, friction products, hydraulic equipment and railroad products.²

Brake lining

The American Brakeblok division took part in the brake lining makers' trade group. In September 1941 the Brake Lining Manufacturers' Association elected P. B. Hoffman of the American Brakeblok Division its second vice president.¹¹ In June 1968 the Friction Materials Standards Institute elected Steven S. Conway, Jr. of Abex Corporation its vice president.³ In May 1956 the journal reported that American Brake Shoe was to receive a new forming machine to test for making friction materials.¹² The Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases lists Abex's Tiger Brake Shoes as braking systems for railroad cars.¹³

In 1980 the Asbestos Information Association/North America listed B. J. Iwarsson, president of the Friction Products Division of Abex Corporation in Winchester, Virginia, among its regular members and directors.¹⁴ Barry Castleman's book Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects, in its section on Abex, cites company industrial hygiene surveys of the American Brakeblok plant at Winchester in 1972 and of a friction products plant at Lindsay, Ontario, in 1975. Those surveys are not in our library.¹⁵

What the courts said

Abex was named as a defendant in asbestos suits from at least the 1980s into the 2010s, both as a brake maker and on claims that it joined other asbestos companies in hiding the hazards.^4,16,17 In Burgess v. Abex Corp. (2000), an Illinois appeals court said Abex had signed the 1936 agreement to underwrite the experiments at Saranac Lake.⁴ The court said Abex received a copy of the 1948 report and apparently returned it at the request of Johns-Manville's general counsel, Vandiver Brown, who wanted all references to cancers and tumors deleted.⁴ The court held this was evidence of an agreement between Abex and Johns-Manville beyond parallel conduct.⁴ It still reversed the judgment against Abex and ordered a new trial, because exhibits and testimony about Owens Corning and Owens-Illinois had been admitted on the mistaken theory that they were co-conspirators.⁴

Later Illinois decisions came out the other way. In Menssen v. Pneumo Abex Corporation (2012), an appeals court held that the evidence, including the Saranac study evidence, did not clearly and convincingly show that Abex agreed to conspire, and reversed a verdict against it; one justice dissented.¹⁸ In Jones v. Pneumo Abex LLC (2021), the court concluded that nothing in the record showed Abex knowingly and intentionally entered into a conspiracy to conceal the health hazards of asbestos exposure.¹⁹

Successor and trust

The caption of the 2000 Burgess decision names the defendant as Abex Corporation, by its successor-in-interest, Pneumo Abex Corporation; a caption gives the parties' own description, not a finding.⁴ The court's opinion in Menssen (2012) itself describes Pneumo Abex, LLC as "the successor of Pneumo Abex Corporation (Abex)."¹⁸ Our trust page says that claims for Abex and Wagner brake exposure are paid from the FMP subfund of the Federal-Mogul Asbestos Personal Injury Trust. It also says Abex brake exposure may reach a separate trust connected to Abex's friction business.⁵

References

1. Asbestos, June 1943, p. 41
2. Asbestos, October 1968, p. 18
3. Asbestos, August 1968, p. 18
4. Burgess v. Abex Corp. ex rel. Pneumo Abex (Ill. App. Ct. 2000)
5. Asbestos Brake Trust Claims: Abex, Wagner, and Ferodo
6. Asbestos, August 1951, p. 32
7. Asbestos, March 1953, p. 52; Asbestos, October 1955, p. 44; Asbestos, February 1957, p. 30; Asbestos, February 1965, p. 26
8. Asbestos, November 1966, p. 26
9. Asbestos, February 1954, p. 44
10. Asbestos, February 1968, p. 28
11. Asbestos, October 1941, p. 34
12. Asbestos, May 1956, p. 18
13. Tiger Brake Shoes (Abex), product page
14. UC-4878: Asbestos Information Association/North America List of Member Companies (1980), p. 1
15. Reading Castleman, Chapter 9: Company Knowledge
16. Miranda v. Abex Corp. (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2010)
17. UC-5324: Union Carbide Corporation's Responses to Plaintiffs' Set 28 Interrogatories in Knox v. Abex Corporation (1985)
18. Menssen v. Pneumo Abex Corporation (Ill. App. Ct. 2012)
19. Jones v. Pneumo Abex LLC (Ill. App. Ct. 2021)

Asbestos products

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

• Abex (Abex)
• Tiger Brake Shoes (Abex)

Court cases

10 court decisions in our case-law library name Abex Corporation as a defendant, newest first.

• Finerty v. Abex Corp. (2016)
• Wells v. 3M Co. (2016)
• Finerty v. Abex Corp. (2015)
• Herman v. Abex Corp. (2014)
• Finerty v. Abex Corp. (2013)
• Gaskill v. Abex Corporation (2012)
• Miranda v. Abex Corp. (2010)
• Burgess v. Abex Corp. EX rel. Pneumo Abex (2000)
• Burgess v. Abex Corp. (1999)
• Uram v. Abex Corp. (1990)

In the Union Carbide documents

Abex Corporation is named in 3 Union Carbide documents dated 1980 to 1994 (3 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• Asbestos Information Association/North America List of Member Companies (1980) UC-4878 (mentioned)
• Union Carbide Corporation's Responses to Plaintiffs' Set 28 Interrogatories in Knox v. Abex Corporation (1985) UC-5324 (mentioned)
• Harcros Chemicals, Inc.'s Response to Plaintiff's Standard Interrogatories in Ahrendt v. Abex Corporation et al. (1994) UC-5244 (mentioned)

Where this comes from

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