Forty-Eight Insulations, Inc

Forty-Eight Insulations, Inc., of Aurora, Illinois, made asbestos-containing insulating cements and block for boilers and pipes from the 1920s until 1970, when it stopped using asbestos. It is best known for Insurance Co. of North America v. Forty-Eight Insulations, the 1980 appeals decision that adopted the exposure theory of insurance coverage for asbestos disease. By 1987 a court described it as in bankruptcy; the library has no record of a 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.

History

The facts the parties agreed on in the 1978 coverage trial give the company's history: an Illinois corporation was incorporated in 1923, Forty-Eight began selling asbestos products in 1934 as its subsidiary, and from 1923 through 1970 "Forty-Eight or its predecessor manufactured and sold various types of insulation blocks and cements containing asbestos for use on boilers, pipes, fittings, elbows, and flat surfaces."¹ In 1970 it discontinued the use of asbestos in all its products.¹ The Sixth Circuit's 1980 opinion says simply that Forty-Eight "stopped using asbestos in its products in 1970."² Asbestos, the industry's trade journal, said "from the 1920's to 1970."⁴

Forty-Eight's own bag label for New White Quik-Set insulating finishing cement gives its address as Aurora, Illinois.⁵ In 1959 Asbestos listed Forty-Eight Insulations, Inc., of Aurora among the charter members of the National Insulation Manufacturers Association (NIMA), the insulation makers' trade group.⁶ According to the 1986 Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases, a compilation by plaintiffs' attorneys, Foster Wheeler Corp. acquired Forty-Eight Insulations in September 1973 and was its parent.¹⁶¹⁷

In the data sheet The Travelers Insurance Company compiled for a 1980 asbestos seminar from defendants' interrogatory answers, Forty-Eight gave its principal place of business and its plant as North Aurora, Illinois, with the plant running from 1923 to 1970. It said it did not mine or mill asbestos and named Johns-Manville, Carey Canadian Mines and Asbestos Corporation, "plus others," as its fiber suppliers.¹⁸

Asbestos products

The library's fullest list of Forty-Eight's products is not the company's own. It is a product list The Travelers Insurance Company compiled from other defendants' answers to interrogatories in asbestos lawsuits, in a printout dated 1981.⁷ That list gives Super 48 and Weber's 48 cements as made from 1925 to 1970 with 15 to 20 percent asbestos, HT block from 1960 to 1968 with 3 percent, and Quik Set cement from 1960 to 1970 with 10 percent.⁷ The 1980 Travelers data sheet gives much lower figures for the cements: Weber's Forty-Eight cement, renamed Weber's Super 48 in 1960, made from 1920 to 1970 with 1 percent chrysotile, and Quick Set cement from the early 1960s to 1970 at 1 percent. For Weber's HT Block, renamed HT Block in 1960, it gives the same 3 percent but an earlier start, the 1930s to 1968. Its 1920 start for the cement is also earlier than the 1923 date it gives for the plant.¹⁸ The sheet adds a MWI-HI-TEMP bonding cement made for 12 to 18 months in 1967 and 1968 under an agreement with Philip Carey, and says Forty-Eight bought calcium silicate from Owens-Corning in 1967 and 1968 and resold it to Babcock & Wilcox.¹⁸ In its 1984 interrogatory answers ACandS listed Forty-Eight Insulations among the manufacturers from which it had obtained asbestos-containing products.⁸

After asbestos was dropped, the company sold other insulation. A January 1972 Forty-Eight data sheet, attached to a 1972 letter from Thorpe Products Co. to Shell Oil, describes MF pipe insulation as "manufactured from 1600°F refractory fibers."⁹

What the documents show

Forty-Eight sat on the NIMA board in the years the industry group discussed health. The company is listed among the directors at the January 1960 board meeting, where the minutes record, under health, that "the industry could benefit from such a program" and that the subject would be studied further.¹⁰ At the May 1960 meeting, where Forty-Eight is again listed among the directors, the minutes record that "the establishment of a NIMA Safety Program with respect to health should be dropped."¹¹ At the April 1964 board meeting, attended by Ike Keith of Forty-Eight, it was reported that Johns-Manville would print on cartons and crates of its asbestos products a caution beginning "This product contains asbestos fiber" and advising respirators where ventilation could not control the dust.¹²

In the 1980 Travelers data sheet, Forty-Eight gave three answers on when it first knew of the hazards: the mid-1970s, a 1969 or 1970 letter from Dr. Selikoff, and 1964 through NIMA. It dated its first warning labels to mid-1970 and said it dropped the product line after learning of the health hazards. It denied sales to the Navy, said its products were never on the Qualified Products List (QPL), and named Thorpe, Plant Insulation of Emeryville, California, and Western MacArthur of South San Francisco, California, as distributors.¹⁸

Lawsuits and the insurance cases

Forty-Eight was named in many of the early product-liability suits that followed Borel v. Fibreboard. The Sixth Circuit counted 251 asbestos suits against it at the time of the district court's decision, over 800 by the end of 1978 and over 1,370 by the summer of 1979.² It was one of the defendants in Hardy v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., where the Fifth Circuit in 1982 reversed a trial order that would have treated points decided in Borel as settled against the defendants.¹³

The coverage case began when the Insurance Company of North America, which had insured Forty-Eight from 1955 to 1972, sued the company and its later insurers over who had to defend and pay these claims.² Some insurers argued that coverage falls on the policy in force when the disease becomes apparent; Forty-Eight and Travelers argued for the policies in force during exposure.² In 1978 the district court in Michigan adopted the exposure theory after a trial with medical testimony.¹ In October 1980 the Sixth Circuit affirmed: the insurers on the risk while the worker was breathing in asbestos share the cost pro rata, and Forty-Eight bears the share for the years it had no insurance, before October 1955.² Forty-Eight said it had been insured before 1955, but the policies had been lost or destroyed and it could not prove them.² Judge Merritt dissented, proposing instead a rule that the disease occurs ten years after first exposure.² On rehearing in 1981 the court held that mesothelioma and lung cancer are treated like asbestosis for coverage, and kept its rule that defense costs are divided the same way.¹⁴

Bankruptcy

In a 1987 decision about a different defendant, the Ohio Supreme Court listed "Forty-Eight Insulations (now in bankruptcy)" among companies that could not have made the product at issue.³ In 1990 the federal court in the Eastern District of Texas, in Cimino v. Raymark Industries, wrote that "Raymark, Forty-Eight Insulations, Unarco, Standard Asbestos, Johns-Manville, Eagle-Picher, and now Celotex are bankrupt."¹⁵ The library's documents do not say when the company filed or what became of the claims against it, and our trust pages list no Forty-Eight trust.

References

1. Ins. Co. of No. Am. v. Forty-Eight Insulations (E.D. Mich. 1978)
2. Ins. Co. North America v. Forty-Eight Insulations (6th Cir. 1980)
3. Goldman v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (Ohio 1987)
4. Asbestos, June 1981, p. 18
5. Label: New White Quik-Set Insulating Finishing Cement (Forty-Eight Insulations)
6. Asbestos, February 1959, p. 8
7. The Travelers Insurance Company's Product Information Booklet for Its Asbestos Seminar (1980–1981), pp. 7, 28, 32
8. ACandS's Answers to Plaintiffs' Master Interrogatories in Bellows v. Fibreboard (1984), p. 10
9. UC-2065: M. P. Proctor (Thorpe Products Co.) to D. S. Meaden (Shell Oil Co.) on the OSHA Asbestos Dust Standard, with Attachments (1972), p. 16
10. National Insulation Manufacturers Association Board Minutes on a Safety Program (January 13, 1960)
11. National Insulation Manufacturers Association Board Minutes Dropping a Health Program (May 6, 1960)
12. National Insulation Manufacturers Association Board Minutes on J-M's Caution Statement (April 14, 1964)
13. Hardy v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (5th Cir. 1982)
14. Ins. Co. of NA v. Forty-Eight Insulations, Inc. (6th Cir. 1981)
15. Cimino v. Raymark Industries, Inc. (E.D. Tex., Nov. 12, 1990)
16. 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. 159.
17. 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. 165.
18. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Forty-Eight Insulations Product Information, p. 2

Asbestos products

11 products our documents name Forty-Eight Insulations, Inc as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

• Forty-eight & Eight (Forty-Eight Insulations)
• Hi Glos (Forty-Eight Insulations)
• HT (Forty-Eight Insulations)
• MW1-Hitemp (Forty-Eight Insulations)
• Quik Set (Forty-Eight Insulations)
• Super 48 (Forty-Eight Insulations)
• Weatherproof (Forty-Eight)
• Weber's 48 (Forty-Eight Insulations)
• Weber's HT (Forty-Eight Insulations)
• Webers 48 (Forty-Eight Insulations)
• Weberseal (Forty-Eight Insulations)

Court cases

11 court decisions in our case-law library name Forty-Eight Insulations, Inc as a defendant, newest first.

• Goldman v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (1987)
• Vigiolto v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1986)
• Lowe v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1985)
• Wilson v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (1982)
• Hardy v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (1982)
• Bertrand v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (1982)
• Fearson v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (1981)
• Hardy v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (1981)
• Ins. Co. of NA v. Forty-Eight Insulations, Inc. (1981)
• Ins. Co. North America v. Forty-Eight Insulations (1980)
• Ins. Co. of No. Am. v. Forty-Eight Insulations (1978)

In our library

2 documents in our library name Forty-Eight Insulations, Inc, by collection.

Other library documents (2)

• Label: New White Quik-Set Insulating Finishing Cement (Forty-Eight Insulations) (publisher)
• Package: New White Quik-Set insulating finishing cement (Forty-Eight Insulations, Inc.) (publisher)

In the Union Carbide documents

Forty-Eight Insulations, Inc is named in 4 Union Carbide documents dated 1972 to 1983 (4 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• M. P. Proctor (Thorpe Products Co.) to D. S. Meaden (Shell Oil Co.) on the OSHA Asbestos Dust Standard, with Attachments (1972) UC-2065 (mentioned)
• Union Carbide Chemicals/Plastics Insulation Standard, Material Specification 4M:4M-B / 4A:4A-B / 4SS:4SS-B for Perlite Insulation (1980) UC-3721 (mentioned)
• D. T. Watters to I. P. Blackwood et al. on Potential Health Risks of Insulation Materials (Perlite Insulation Specification 4) (1981) UC-3253 (mentioned)
• Summonses and Amended Complaints in Partain v. North Bros. Co. et al. and Cooper v. North Bros. Co. et al., Naming Union Carbide as Defendant (1983) UC-1411 (mentioned)

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for Forty-Eight Insulations, Inc, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: Forty-Eight Insulations · Forty-Eight Insulations Inc.

Where this comes from

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