R.T. Vanderbilt

R.T. Vanderbilt Company (now Vanderbilt Minerals, LLC) is a Connecticut-based industrial minerals firm that mined and sold industrial talc from deposits near Gouverneur, New York, from the 1940s into the early 2000s. The company's talc has been the subject of extensive litigation because independent testing has repeatedly identified asbestiform minerals (including tremolite, anthophyllite, and related fibers) within the ore. Vanderbilt has long disputed that its talc contains regulated asbestos, a position rejected by many courts, regulators, and scientists.

Origin

The company traces back to 1916, when Robert T. Vanderbilt acquired a chemical and minerals business in Norwalk, Connecticut. It entered the talc business by acquiring the International Talc Company and operating the Gouverneur Talc mines in upstate New York, which sit in a geological belt known to host tremolite and anthophyllite mineralization.

Significance in Asbestos Context

Vanderbilt's Gouverneur talc was sold for decades into ceramics, paint, joint compound, rubber, roofing, cosmetics carriers, and industrial fillers, meaning exposures spanned many trades and consumer products. Workers in ceramics plants, potteries, tile and rubber manufacturing, and downstream product makers, as well as end users of talc-containing products, have developed mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases traced to this ore. The company's internal documents, NIOSH investigations, and decades of independent mineralogical testing have become central evidence in litigation, and identifying Vanderbilt talc in a patient's exposure history can open a meaningful avenue of recovery that might otherwise be missed. Because Vanderbilt long denied the asbestos content of its product, product-identification proof and expert mineralogical analysis are typically required.

Related Terms

Industrial Talc, Tremolite, Anthophyllite, Gouverneur Talc, Product Identification, Fiber Burden Analysis

Notes

• If you or a family member worked in ceramics, pottery, tile, rubber, paint, or joint-compound manufacturing, or used products from those industries, ask your legal team to investigate whether Vanderbilt/Gouverneur talc was in the supply chain.
• Preserve any employment records, union records, product packaging, MSDS sheets, or purchase records that might identify talc suppliers; brand names like "Nytal" are associated with Vanderbilt talc.
• Pathology and tissue digestion studies that identify tremolite or anthophyllite fibers (rather than chrysotile) can support a Vanderbilt-talc exposure theory; ask whether fiber-burden analysis is appropriate in your case.
• Vanderbilt has been a litigated defendant rather than a bankruptcy trust, so claims typically proceed through the tort system rather than through a trust claim form.

Court cases

7 court decisions in our case-law library name R.T. Vanderbilt as a defendant, newest first.

• Kaenzig v. Charles B. Chrystal Company, Inc. (2015)
• RT Vanderbilt Co. Inc. v. Galliher (2014)
• Miller v. American Art Clay Co. Inc. (2014)
• Galliher v. R. T. Vanderbilt (In re Asbestos Litigation, 2012)
• RT Vanderbilt Company, Inc. v. Franklin (2009)
• Slaughter v. Union Carbide Corp. (2007)
• Burns v. AP Green Industries, Inc. (2001)

In the Union Carbide documents

R.T. Vanderbilt is named in 7 Union Carbide documents dated 1967 to 1979 (7 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• R. G. Woolery to Distribution List: Asbestos Research & Development Monthly Summary Report for May 1967 (1967) UC-758 (mentioned)
• H. B. Rhodes Informal Report on Evaluation of Asbestos-Vansil Produced at King City as an Opacifying Agent for Paper (1968) UC-134 (mentioned)
• R. L. Folkman to J. C. Stephenson Transmitting H. F. Reichard's Summary of UCC Asbestos Market Patterns (1969) UC-2256 (mentioned)
• Carol W. Grant (Asbestos Information Association) to Matthew M. Swetonic (Hill and Knowlton) on the NIOSH Hearing on Asbestos in Coal Mines (1974) UC-4355 (mentioned)
• H. B. Rhodes to J. L. Myers on Dr. C. S. Thompson's Visit to Niagara Falls: Silica Criteria, Talc Exemption and Fiber Counting (1974) UC-2973 (mentioned)
• Harrison B. Rhodes to Herman Brunotte (NY State Department of Labor) on Fiber Counts of Two Samples and Fibrous Talc vs. Anthophylite (1976) UC-4130 (mentioned)
• W. G. Kahler II to T. R. Alexander and Others on DOT Docket HM-160, Transportation of Asbestos, with Commenter Lists and DOT Regulatory Evaluation (1979) UC-3329 (mentioned)

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for R.T. Vanderbilt, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: R. T. Vanderbilt Co · R. T. Vanderbilt Company · R. T. Vanderbilt Company, Inc · R. T. Vanderbilt · R. T. Vanderbilt & Co.

Where this comes from

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