Opinion ID: 3134558
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Evidence of Owens Corning’s Activities

Text: Extensive evidence of Owens Corning’s activities with respect to its own products and own employees was presented. Again, this evidence was intended to support plaintiffs’ theory that similarities in the activities of Owens Corning and the other alleged conspirators demonstrated the alleged conspiracy.
To show that, like the other alleged conspirators, Owens Corning was aware of the health hazards of asbestos and failed to communicate information about these hazards to its employees, plaintiffs relied on a 1942 internal memorandum. This memorandum indicated that Owens Corning planned to gather medical and scientific literature concerning asbestosis and use this information as a “weapon-in-reserve” during negotiations with the Asbestos Workers Union. The memorandum proposed that the information on asbestosis be disclosed to union locals only if the union leadership rejected the company’s offer. Other evidence showed that, in 1956, Owens Corning received information from Saranac Laboratory that asbestos had been “fairly well incriminated as a carcinogen.” Plaintiffs presented other evidence intended to show that Owens Corning made efforts to conceal the information it had about the health risks related to asbestos. For example, according to a sales brochure published by Owens Corning in 1956, Kaylo was “[n]on-irritating to the skin and non-toxic.” In 1966, Owens Corning placed a label on Kaylo cartons concerning its asbestos content, but the label did not identify specific health hazards. The label provided: “This product contains asbestos fiber. If dust is created when this product is handled, avoid breathing the dust. If adequate ventilation control is not possible, wear respirator approved by U.S. Bureau of Mines.” In 1970, Owens Corning changed the label on cartons of Kaylo. The new label read: “Caution–Product contains asbestos fiber. Inhalation of dust in excessive quantities over long periods of time may be harmful. Avoid breathing dust. If adequate ventilation is not possible wear respirators approved by the U.S. Bureau of Mines for pneumoconiosis producing dust.” In addition to this evidence, plaintiffs relied on numerous internal Owens Corning memoranda as evidence that Owens Corning endeavored to conceal the health risks of asbestos. A 1966 internal memorandum contained a reminder regarding Owens Corning’s “long-standing” policy that inquiries and complaints concerning the health hazards of Owens Corning products should be referred to certain corporate officers or the company’s legal department . A 1967 internal memorandum indicated that an Owens Corning employee had questioned plans to expand Kaylo manufacturing given that “the Government will probably blow the whistle relative to the use of asbestos in the not too distant future.” In a 1968 internal memorandum, the author recognized the association between asbestos exposure and asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma, but observed that Owens Corning’s position had been to indicate that “all medical research to date indicates no hazard to health.” Another internal memorandum from that same year concerned the company’s participation in the Insulation Industry Hygiene Council. According to this memorandum, “much care and consideration went into developing the proposed draft for the constitution by-laws of this organization  [in order to] limit the influence of Dr. Selikoff.” Selikoff was an authority on asbestos and disease who had worked to publicize and protect workers from the health hazards of asbestos. Similarly, internal correspondence from 1970 indicates that Owens Corning was reluctant to participate in an industrial hygiene course organized by Selikoff. Owens Corning believed it would be unwise to attend the course because, inter alia , it would give “tacit approval to Selikoff.” The evidence presented at trial indicates that Owens Corning first began notifying employees of the health hazards associated with asbestos exposure in the 1970s. Some employees received this information in the early seventies. For example, internal Owens Corning memoranda show that, at meetings in 1971, Berlin employees were informed by their plant manager about the adverse health effects of asbestos exposure. In addition, an employee in the Bloomington plant testified that she first learned of these health risks when Owens Corning sent her and certain other employees to a meeting at Illinois State University in 1971. The evidence showed that Owens Corning did not inform other employees of these health hazards until 1978. In April of that year, United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Joseph Califano issued a “broadly publicized statement bringing attention to the possible increased risk of death from an asbestos related disease many years after exposure had terminated.” Califano suggested that exposed workers should stop smoking cigarettes and receive a physical examination from a physician. Around the time of the Califano announcement, the Surgeon General issued a “Physicians Advisory” concerning the health effects of asbestos. Following the Califano announcement, Owens Corning communicated these health hazards to all Bloomington plant employees. Before that time, “no formal education programs regarding asbestos hazards” had occurred at the Bloomington plant. After the Califano announcement, Owens Corning also notified former Bloomington plant employees of the diseases that could be caused by asbestos exposure. There was also testimony, however, that not all Owens Corning employees received information from their employer about the health risks related to asbestos. According to Jerry Helser, Owens Corning never informed him of these risks. Helser testified that Owens Corning never told him that asbestos could cause asbestosis, lung cancer, or mesothelioma. He was never informed that Kaylo dust was a hazardous industrial dust or that he should wear a respirator to avoid inhaling Kaylo dust because the dust was harmful.
In addition to this evidence of Owens-Corning’s knowledge of and failure to communicate the health hazards of asbestos, the parties presented evidence of conditions at plants where Owens Corning produced asbestos-containing products. In 1951, the Saranac Laboratory conducted an industrial hygiene survey at Owens-Illinois’ Sayreville, New Jersey, plant, at which Kaylo was manufactured. The report concluded that “considerable attention had been given in the plant to the control of dust.” Given that some of the dust samples approached the “maximum allowable limits,” however, the report recommended certain improvements to the plant’s dust control measures. In 1961, only two of the dust samples taken during an industrial hygiene survey of the Berlin plant exceeded the threshold limit value of five million particles per cubic foot. Of these two samples, one only slightly exceeded the limit and, with respect to the other, “exposure was intermittent.” The survey report made no recommendations for improvements. Helser testified that, when he worked at the Berlin plant in the sixties, the plant had a ventilation and dust-collection system, which had intake vents at all the saws and sanders used to shape the final product. Some dust, however, escaped the system. In addition to the dust-collection system, the Berlin plant had a respirator program under which respirators were required in certain areas of the plant and a program under which employees received annual physical examinations and X rays. Throughout his career at Owens Corning, Helser received annual chest X rays. One Bloomington plant employee testified that, after the sale of the Bloomington plant to Owens Corning in 1970, the plant continued to operate. Owens Corning installed dust-collection equipment in the plant, which helped control the dust, but it took approximately a year for this equipment to be installed. Owens Corning asked employees to wear respirators, but did not make this a requirement. It also held safety meetings with employees. According to a 1978 internal Owens Corning memorandum, the Berlin plant was cleaned after asbestos production stopped there in 1972, and air samples showed that the concentrations of asbestos there were extremely low. Insulation containing asbestos was produced at the Bloomington plant only 1½ years after Owens Corning purchased the plant. Nevertheless, the memorandum acknowledged that “there were significant exposures” at both of these plants and that cases of asbestosis had arisen in workers from both plants.