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W.R. Grace

W.R. Grace & Co. is a specialty chemicals and materials company that, from 1963 to 1990, owned and operated a vermiculite mine in Libby, Montana. The vermiculite ore from that mine was heavily contaminated with asbestos, primarily a tremolite-actinolite series fiber now called Libby Amphibole. The company shipped this contaminated ore across North America, where it was processed into the widely used attic insulation Zonolite and hundreds of other building and horticultural products.

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Origin

The company was founded in 1854 in Peru by Irish immigrant William Russell Grace, who later became the first Roman Catholic mayor of New York City. It grew into a global shipping, chemicals, and materials conglomerate, and in 1963 acquired the Zonolite Company along with its Libby, Montana vermiculite operations.

Significance in Asbestos Context

W.R. Grace is one of the most consequential asbestos defendants in U.S. history because its Libby operation exposed not only miners and millers but also their families, the broader Libby community, workers at hundreds of downstream expansion plants, and homeowners with Zonolite attic insulation. Internal company documents, later made public through litigation and federal investigations, showed Grace knew about the asbestos contamination and health risks for decades while continuing to sell the product. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001 under the weight of asbestos claims and emerged in 2014 after establishing the WRG Asbestos PI Trust, which is now the route through which most personal injury and wrongful death claims against the company are resolved. If you, a family member, or a previous home you lived in had any connection to Libby vermiculite or Zonolite insulation, this corporate history is directly relevant to your claim.

Libby Amphibole, Zonolite, Vermiculite, Asbestos Bankruptcy Trust, Tremolite, Chapter 11

Notes

  • If you ever lived in, worked in, or renovated a home with loose-fill attic insulation that looks like small gold, brown, or gray pebbles, have it tested before disturbing it. It may be Zonolite from Libby.
  • Claims against W.R. Grace are now filed through the WRG Asbestos PI Trust; ask your attorney about deadlines, required exposure documentation, and the trust's payment percentage.
  • Preserve any records that tie you or a family member to Libby, Montana; to a Grace expansion plant (there were over 200 across North America); or to specific construction or insulation work involving vermiculite.
  • The EPA designated Libby a Superfund site and later issued a Public Health Emergency declaration. Federal records and the ATSDR health screening program may provide useful documentation for your case.

People

People the documents tie to W.R. Grace, most often named first, with the titles the documents give them.

Asbestos trust

If you or a family member worked with or around W.R. Grace's asbestos products and later developed mesothelioma or another asbestos disease, a claim may be paid by W.R. Grace Asbestos Trust Claims. Free case review.

Asbestos products

5 products our documents name W.R. Grace as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

Plants

Plants where asbestos products were made that the documents say W.R. Grace ran.

Court cases

37 court decisions in our case-law library name W.R. Grace as a defendant, newest first.

In our library

1 document in our library name W.R. Grace, by collection.

Other library documents (1)

In the Union Carbide documents

W.R. Grace is named in 97 Union Carbide documents dated 1971 to 1993 (3 as the source, 96 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. 94 of them are published in our collection.

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for W.R. Grace, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: W. R. Grace · Grace · W. R. Grace & Company · Grace GmbH · W. R. Grace & Co · W. R. Grace - Darex · W. R. Grace Co · Grace (Marco Chemical) · W. R. Grace, Ltd., Industrial Chemicals Group · W. R. Grace and Company · W. R. Grace Ltd · WR Grace · W. R. Grace & Co. (Grace Davison, Baltimore) · W. R. Grace Limited, London · W. R. Grace Inc · W.R. Grace, Inc · W. R. Grace (Pacific-Interamerican Div.) · W. R. Grace Company · W.R. Grace & Company · Grace GmbH, Worms (intercompany correspondence); page 2 is a translated letter from BASF Aktiengesellschaft · W. R. Grace Co., Marco Div · W. R. Grace - Europe · W. R. Grace and Co · Grace Company · W. R. Grace & Co., Washington Research Center.

Where this comes from

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

Mentioned on this site

Cite this page

“W.R. Grace.” AsbestosClaims.Law Library. https://asbestosclaims.law/library/organizations/w-r-grace.

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This page is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Every asbestos case turns on its own facts, exposure history, diagnosis, deadlines, available evidence, and applicable law. Reviewing this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, call 833-4-ASBESTOS for a free case review.