Maremont Corporation

Maremont Corporation, through its Grizzly Brake Division, made asbestos brake linings, sold mainly as replacement parts, at a plant in Paulding County, Ohio. In 1977 it agreed to put its friction-material operations into a new company controlled by Turner & Newall, and it later became part of ArvinMeritor. Maremont was a member of the Center for Claims Resolution and filed for bankruptcy in 2019, setting up an 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 and products

The library's records of Maremont concern its brakes. The library holds a 1956 advertisement for Maremont's Grizzly brake linings and another for Grizzly Silvertip linings from the Grizzly Brake Division.²⁵ In Johnson v. ArvinMeritor (Cal. App. 2017), the court described Maremont as "a wholly owned entity of ArvinMeritor" that "manufactured asbestos-containing brake linings under the Grizzly brand that were primarily intended to be used as replacement parts," and said Maremont supplied Grizzly friction materials to International, the truck maker.¹

In August 1977 Asbestos, the industry's trade journal, reported that Turner & Newall and Maremont had agreed to form a joint company to acquire Maremont's friction-material and brake operations in Paulding, Ohio, and Nashville, Tennessee.⁴ Turner & Newall was to hold 80% of the new firm, called Nuturn Corporation, pay about $8 million for it, and run it as part of its Ferodo group.⁴

The brake industry's trade group

Maremont took part in the friction-material makers' trade group, the Friction Materials Standards Institute (FMSI). Asbestos reported that Joseph W. Greenen of Maremont's Grizzly Brake Division was elected the institute's vice president in 1969 and its president in 1971.⁶⁷ When Greenen died in 1980, the journal noted that he had worked for the Grizzly Division of Maremont and was then a vice president of Nuturn.⁸

In the 1970s Maremont appears in the asbestos industry's dealings with regulators. Maremont's Grizzly Division is on the attendee list for a Johns-Manville customer seminar on asbestos and health held in Cleveland on January 15, 1974.⁹ In April 1976 Maremont Corp. was among the companies that endorsed the Asbestos Information Association's comments to OSHA on its proposed revision of the asbestos standard.¹⁰

What the documents show

In Polanco v. Asbestos Corp. (Ohio App. 2009), a suit over a worker's death after years at Maremont's Paulding County plant, co-workers testified that the material used to make the brake products, and much else in the plant, contained asbestos.³ The family relied on FMSI documents that reported, year by year, the institute's work on OSHA's asbestos standards, labeling and dust monitoring.³ The appeals court held that the documents could be treated as in Maremont's custody, because Maremont was a member of FMSI and a Maremont employee had served on its board, and it reversed summary judgment for Maremont and sent the case to trial.³ One judge called that custody conclusion "overreaching" and said it was a question of fact whether the documents reached Maremont itself or only a Maremont employee acting as an FMSI board member.³ An earlier appeal in the same case, in 2007, had been dismissed on procedural grounds.¹¹

In Johnson v. ArvinMeritor, the court affirmed summary judgment for Maremont and the other brake defendants, finding that Maremont was only one of several suppliers of replacement linings and that exposure to its product was merely possible.¹

Litigation and bankruptcy

Maremont was one of the twenty companies in the Center for Claims Resolution, the defendants' group whose proposed class settlement of future asbestos claims was struck down in Georgine v. Amchem Products (3d Cir. 1996) and Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor (1997).¹²¹³ A 2001 filing in a California case, now among the Union Carbide exhibits, shows the same law firm representing "The Center For Claims Resolution Defendants," Maremont among them.¹⁴

Maremont filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019 with a prepackaged plan that created an asbestos personal injury trust under section 524(g) of the Bankruptcy Code. The library does not yet hold a trust page or bankruptcy records for Maremont.

References

1. Johnson v. ArvinMeritor, Inc. (Cal. App. 2017)
2. Advertisement: Grizzly Silvertip (Grizzly Brake Division)
3. Polanco v. Asbestos Corp., Ltd. (Ohio App. 2009)
4. Asbestos, August 1977, p. 14
5. Advertisement: Maremont/Grizzly brake linings (Maremont Marketing) (1956)
6. Asbestos, August 1969, p. 16
7. Asbestos, October 1971, p. 24
8. Asbestos, September 1980, p. 35
9. AIA-112: Johns-Manville Corporation, A Condensation of Environmental Facts on Asbestos and Health, with Customer Seminar Attendee Lists (1974), p. 43
10. AIA-115: R. H. Hereness (AIA) to OSHA Docket Officer, Docket H-033, Transmitting Industry Comments on the Proposed Asbestos Standard (1976), p. 2
11. Polanco v. Asbestos Corp., Inc. (Ohio App. 2007)
12. Georgine v. Amchem Products, Inc. (3d Cir. 1996)
13. Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor (U.S. 1997)
14. UC-5456: United States Gypsum Company's Responses to Standard Interrogatories in Karal v. Atlas Turner, Inc., with Exhibits 1-9 (2001), p. 1

Asbestos products

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

• Grizzly (Maremont)
• Grizzly Saftigrip #16037 (Maremont)
• Grizzly Silvertip (Maremont)

Court cases

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

• Johnson v. ArvinMeritor, Inc. (2017)
• Baiocco v. AC & S., Inc. (2013)
• Russell v. Ford Motor Company (2010)
• Polanco v. Asbestos Corp., Ltd. (2009)
• Polanco v. Asbestos Corp., Inc. (2007)
• Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor (1997)
• Georgine v. Amchem Products, Inc. (1996)

In the Union Carbide documents

Maremont Corporation is named in 2 Union Carbide documents dated 2001 to 2003 (2 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• United States Gypsum Company's Responses to Standard Interrogatories in Karal v. Atlas Turner, Inc., with Exhibits 1-9 (2001) UC-5456 (mentioned)
• Affidavit of Susan W. Gilefsky Attaching U.S. Gypsum and Georgia-Pacific Interrogatory Responses (2003) UC-5449 (mentioned)

Where this comes from

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