B. F. Goodrich

The B. F. Goodrich Company of Akron, Ohio, was a rubber and chemical maker whose asbestos story in our library is mostly that of a buyer and user: it filed a trademark for asbestos sheet packing in 1937, later records list a neoprene-bonded asbestos paper and a steam hose under its name, and its chemical and adhesive units tested and bought Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos from the 1970s into the 1980s. It has been sued as a product maker and as the owner of a plant where a contractor's worker said he was exposed to asbestos. Our library holds no record of an asbestos bankruptcy or trust for it.

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

Background

Asbestos, the industry's trade journal, noted in 1921 that the B. F. Goodrich Company of Akron was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, and that Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich had built its first small factory fifty years before.² Over the following decades the magazine reported on Goodrich mainly as a maker of conveyor and elevator belting and other industrial rubber goods.^1,12 A 1983 Union Carbide sales report describes a Mexican company as "a B. F. Goodrich licensee for tires."¹³ A 2021 New York court decision names the company as The B.F. Goodrich Company (Goodrich Corporation).¹⁴ Captions in two later New York asbestos suits name the defendant as Goodrich Corporation, "f/k/a the BF Goodrich Company," and describe it as successor-in-interest by merger with Coltec Industries and Garlock; a caption is the plaintiff's description of a defendant, not a finding by the court.¹⁵¹⁶

Asbestos products

The magazine's list of trademarks in June 1938 includes a "G" mark in a wreath, filed by B. F. Goodrich Co. on August 6, 1937, for asbestos sheet packing.⁴ In 1934 the magazine reported a brake lining patent granted to two inventors and assigned half to J. Sullivan & Sons Mfg. Co. and half to B. F. Goodrich.¹⁷ A 1958 patent assigned to Goodrich covered a fire-resistant coating for steel plate made with refiberized asbestos, a rubber polymer and an insulating refractory material such as fire clay.¹⁸ A later reference work, the Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases, lists Prenite as "neoprene-bonded asbestos paper" and Superheat as "sheet steam hose" under the Goodrich name.^5,6

In December 1963 Asbestos reported that the Flintkote Company had agreed to buy floor tile machinery and equipment from B. F. Goodrich. Flintkote would make its own Flexachrome vinyl-asbestos and Tile-Tex asphalt-asbestos tile at Watertown, Massachusetts, in plant space leased from Goodrich.¹⁹

Buying Calidria asbestos

Union Carbide's Calidria trial exhibits record Goodrich as a customer and prospect. On August 23, 1974, Union Carbide sent G. T. Dalal of B. F. Goodrich Chemical Company in Avon Lake, Ohio, a 35-pound sample of Calidria RG-600 with a safety data sheet. The letter said chrysotile "has no acute toxity but is covered under current OSHA regulations" and offered to take a dust count during Goodrich's trials (UC-5033).³ A 1975 call report says Goodrich researchers at Brecksville, Ohio, had tried RG-600 to reinforce epoxy and liquid rubber mixtures, found that tensile strength and elongation were greatly reduced, and lost interest (UC-305).²⁰ The same report says they had achieved "good increases in modulus," and that they were interested in a possible second-generation RG-600 with a coupling agent better suited to elastomers.²⁰

A November 1976 call report records that Goodrich's director of corporate safety, Edward Katzenmyer, said he had not banned asbestos at the Avon Lake plant, as had been reported. The report says no asbestos was then being used there, and that using RG-600 would require suitable handling equipment, dust counts and medical examinations (UC-601).⁷ In January 1979 Gordon L. Dickson of Union Carbide wrote to Goodrich's Chemicals & Pigments Department in Akron suggesting Calidria as a substitute for the Canadian grade 7T asbestos the department was then using (UC-4534).²¹

By 1984 Goodrich's Akron Adhesives unit was, in a salesman's words, "a small consumer of RG-244 in an Aircraft Adhesive." The same report says the unit had removed most grades of asbestos from its formulations but had not been able to replace RG-244 (UC-321).⁸ A March 1985 follow-up says it was continuing to work toward removing all asbestos from its products.⁸ In August 1983 Goodrich's Akron office ordered a no-charge sample of Calidria SG-103 from Union Carbide; the related papers in the exhibit concern Euzkadi, a Mexican floor tile maker (UC-510).^22,13

Other records

In 1977 California's state health director, in remarks attached to a Union Carbide memo, thanked Johns-Manville, B. F. Goodrich and Union Carbide for help with various parts of the state's program development, in a speech on preventing job-related cancer (UC-2962).²³ The trial record in Borel v. Fibreboard lists a 1961 insulation job at a Goodrich-Gulf plant among the worker's job sites.²⁴

Lawsuits

In Shelhamer v. Crane (2012), the Pennsylvania appeals court recounted that a jury had found the worker exposed to asbestos products of B. F. Goodrich and other companies, and had found the Goodrich products defective.⁹ Goodrich was also sued as a plant owner. In General Electric Co. v. Cain (2007), the Kentucky Supreme Court held that Goodrich and six other owners had not shown they were entitled to workers' compensation immunity against claims by the family of a contractor's millwright, and sent those claims back to the trial court.¹⁰

References

1. Asbestos, September 1919, p. 18
2. Asbestos, February 1921, p. 52
3. UC-5033: R. E. Byrne Jr. to G. T. Dalal (B. F. Goodrich) on Calidria RG-600 Sample and Dust Count Offer (1974), p. 1
4. Asbestos, June 1938, p. 41
5. Prenite (B.F. Goodrich), product page
6. Superheat (B.F. Goodrich), product page
7. UC-601: Calidria Asbestos Call Reports and Letters on B. F. Goodrich and Related Accounts (1974–1984), p. 1
8. UC-321: T. P. Norris Call Reports on B.F. Goodrich Akron Adhesives and RG-244 Use in Aircraft Adhesive (1984–1985), pp. 1–2
9. Shelhamer v. Crane (Pa. Super. Ct. 2012)
10. General Electric Co. v. Cain (Ky. 2007)
11. Asbestos trusts A–Z
12. Asbestos, March 1943, p. 41
13. UC-4669: T. P. Norris Customer Call Report on U. C. Mexicana S.A. (1983), p. 2
14. Camiolo v. American Biltrite Inc. (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2021)
15. Pistone v. American Biltrite, Inc. (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2018)
16. Papsodero v. Air & Liquid Systems Corp. (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2023)
17. Asbestos, July 1934, p. 39
18. Asbestos, April 1958, p. 62
19. Asbestos, December 1963, p. 6
20. UC-305: R. E. Byrne and G. L. Dickson Call Report on B.F. Goodrich Co. Evaluation of RG-600 (1975), p. 1
21. UC-4534: Gordon L. Dickson to Donald K. Schoeplein (B. F. Goodrich) Proposing Calidria HPO as a Substitute for Canadian Grade 7T Asbestos (1979), p. 1
22. UC-510: BFGoodrich Purchase Order to Union Carbide, King City, for No-Charge Calidria Sample for Euzkadi (1983), p. 1
23. UC-2962: John L. Myers to C. R. Allenbach et al. on Union Carbide and the State of California (1977), p. 8
24. The Borel v. Fibreboard case file, trial transcript, vol. IV, p. 105

Asbestos products

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

• G (B.F. Goodrich)
• Prenite (B.F. Goodrich)
• Prenite Packing (B.F. Goodrich)
• Superheat (B.F. Goodrich)

Court cases

4 court decisions in our case-law library name B. F. Goodrich as a defendant, newest first.

• Camiolo v. American Biltrite Inc. (2021)
• Shelhamer v. Crane (2012)
• General Elec. Co. v. Cain (2007)
• Rehm v. Navistar International (2005)

In the Union Carbide documents

B. F. Goodrich is named in 20 Union Carbide documents dated 1969 to 2001 (20 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• Union Carbide Calidria Asbestos Product Literature: Resin-Grade 244, Resin-Grade 144, T-135 and Polyester Premix Brochures (1969) UC-780 (mentioned)
• Union Carbide Product Brochure for Calidria Resin-Grade 244 Asbestos as a Thixotrope and Thickener (1969) UC-1051 (mentioned)
• Union Carbide Calidria Resin-Grade 244 Asbestos Product Brochure (1969) UC-5007 (mentioned)
• John L. Myers Transmittal of December and Year-End 1971 Calidria Asbestos Sales Report, with Attached Sales Reports (1972) Union Carbide 191 (mentioned)
• Occupational Hazards Editorial, 'Occupational disease sends shock waves throughout industry' (1975) UC-3308 (mentioned)
• R. E. Byrne and G. L. Dickson Call Report on B.F. Goodrich Co. Evaluation of RG-600 (1975) UC-305 (mentioned)
• Union Carbide 1977 Customer/Application List by Product Grade (1977) Union Carbide 17 (mentioned)
• Gordon L. Dickson to Donald K. Schoeplein (B. F. Goodrich) on Substituting Calidria HPO for Canadian Grade 7T Asbestos (1979) Union Carbide 480 (mentioned)
• Gordon L. Dickson to Donald K. Schoeplein (B. F. Goodrich) Proposing Calidria HPO as a Substitute for Canadian Grade 7T Asbestos (1979) UC-4534 (mentioned)
• California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board, Summary of April 26, 1979 Fresno Public Hearing on Asbestos, Lead and Other Proposed Standards (1979) UC-5237 (mentioned)
• T. P. Norris Customer Call Report on U. C. Mexicana S.A., Mexico City, on Calidria SG-103 Sales to Floor Tile Makers (1983) Union Carbide 641 (mentioned)
• T. P. Norris Customer Call Report on U. C. Mexicana S.A., Mexico City, on Floor Tile Sales of Calidria SG-103 (1983) UC-4669 (mentioned)
• T. P. Norris Customer Call Report on U. C. Mexicana S.A., Floor Tile Customers in Mexico (1983) UC-5072 (mentioned)
• BFGoodrich Purchase Order to Union Carbide, King City, for No-Charge Calidria 5G-103-7 Sample for Euzkadi, with Related Call Report and Telex (1983) UC-510 (mentioned)
• Calidria Sample Order to B. F. Goodrich Company, Brownsville, Texas, with Handwritten Follow-up Notes (1983) UC-511 (mentioned)
• American Plastics Council Web Page, 'History of Plastics' (2001) UC-5293 (mentioned)
• T. P. Norris Customer Call Reports on Euzkadi, Mexico City, Vinyl Asbestos Tile Prospect (1983-1985) UC-506 (mentioned)
• Calidria Asbestos Call Reports and Letters on B. F. Goodrich and Related Accounts (1974-1984) UC-601 (mentioned)
• Calidria Customer Call Reports by T. P. Norris on Mexico City Accounts: Texas Refinery, W. R. Grace-Darex, and U. C. Mexicana (1983-1984) UC-695 (mentioned)
• Calidria Resin-Grade 244 Asbestos in Vinyl Sealant and Thickening Figures (Figs. 23-25) UC-1013 (mentioned)

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for B. F. Goodrich, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: B. F. Goodrich Company · B.F. Goodrich · BFGoodrich · B.F. Goodrich Co · The BFGoodrich Company · B.F. Goodrich Company.

Where this comes from

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