In 1935, two executives at competing asbestos companies exchanged a series of letters that would eventually become some of the most damning evidence in American corporate history. Sumner Simpson of Raybestos-Manhattan and Vandiver Brown of Johns-Manville were discussing a problem: medical evidence was accumulating that asbestos exposure caused fatal lung disease.
Their solution was not to warn workers or develop safer products. It was to suppress the evidence.
“The less said about asbestos, the better off we are,” Brown wrote. The sentence would later appear in countless court documents, newspaper articles, and congressional hearings—a nine-word summary of decades of corporate malfeasance that left hundreds of thousands of Americans sick or dying.
What They Knew and When
The asbestos industry’s knowledge of its products’ dangers extends back nearly a century. Johns-Manville, the largest asbestos manufacturer in American history, was among the first to understand the risks—and among the most aggressive in hiding them.
1930s: Company doctors begin documenting elevated rates of lung disease among asbestos workers. Internal reports note that workers in certain departments are dying young. Rather than share these findings, Johns-Manville classifies the research as confidential.
1935: The Simpson-Brown correspondence shows executives at Johns-Manville and Raybestos-Manhattan coordinating to suppress medical evidence. The companies fund compliant researchers, control access to workers for medical studies, and work to discredit independent findings.
1936: The companies block publication of a study by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company that documents high rates of asbestosis among insulation workers. When the study is eventually published in a watered-down form, it omits the most alarming findings.
1940s-1950s: Internal company documents continue to show growing evidence of cancer risk. Johns-Manville’s own medical department tracks elevated cancer rates among workers but does not inform them of the danger.
1963: A company physician, Dr. Kenneth Smith, writes an internal memo recommending that Johns-Manville warn workers about the cancer risk. Management rejects the proposal. Smith later testified that he was instructed to keep quiet.
The Strategy of Denial
Johns-Manville’s approach to the asbestos crisis followed a consistent pattern over five decades:
Control the research: The company funded studies designed to minimize apparent risk. When independent researchers sought access to workers or company data, Johns-Manville typically refused. Studies that produced unfavorable results were suppressed or delayed.
Settle quietly: Beginning in the 1930s, Johns-Manville faced lawsuits from sick workers. Rather than contest these cases publicly—which might generate news coverage—the company settled quietly, requiring plaintiffs to sign confidentiality agreements that prevented them from warning others.
Oppose regulation: When OSHA proposed asbestos exposure limits in the early 1970s, Johns-Manville was among the loudest voices opposing strict standards. The company argued that the scientific evidence was uncertain, that proposed limits were technologically infeasible, and that the economic costs would be devastating.
Avoid warning labels: Despite knowing that asbestos caused cancer, Johns-Manville resisted placing warning labels on its products. Internal documents show executives feared that warnings would expose the company to liability and reduce sales.
When litigation finally exposed Johns-Manville’s internal files, the evidence was damning. A 1966 memo stated: “We have been aware for years that some of our asbestos-containing products have been harmful to workers and to users.” These documents became central to victims obtaining compensation.
The Bankruptcy Strategy
By the early 1980s, Johns-Manville’s legal strategy had failed. Thousands of lawsuits were pending, and juries were increasingly awarding large verdicts to sick workers and their families. The documentary evidence of corporate concealment made defense nearly impossible.
In August 1982, Johns-Manville filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At the time, the company was profitable and had substantial assets. The filing was not a confession of insolvency—it was a litigation strategy.
Bankruptcy allowed Johns-Manville to consolidate all asbestos claims into a single legal proceeding, limiting the company’s exposure to a defined sum. It also stopped all pending lawsuits, providing immediate relief from the onslaught of litigation.
The maneuver was controversial. Critics argued that bankruptcy should not be available to profitable companies seeking to escape tort liability. But the courts ultimately approved Johns-Manville’s reorganization plan, which included the creation of the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust.
The Trust Fund
The Manville Trust, established in 1988, became the model for subsequent asbestos trust funds. It was funded by Johns-Manville’s stock, insurance proceeds, and a portion of the reorganized company’s future profits.
The trust operates independently, evaluating claims and paying compensation to people who developed mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, or other diseases from Johns-Manville asbestos exposure.
As of 2024, the Manville Trust has paid over $4 billion to claimants. It continues to receive thousands of claims annually, a testament to the long latency period of asbestos-related diseases. Workers exposed in the 1960s and 1970s are still being diagnosed today.
The trust fund model has since been replicated dozens of times. More than 60 asbestos trusts now exist, created by bankrupt manufacturers, distributors, and users of asbestos products. Together, they have paid tens of billions of dollars to victims.
The Human Cost
The story of Johns-Manville is ultimately not about corporate strategy or legal maneuvering. It is about human beings who trusted that the products they handled every day were safe.
Factory workers in Johns-Manville plants across the country spent careers surrounded by asbestos dust. Many developed asbestosis, a progressive scarring of the lungs that makes breathing increasingly difficult. Others developed mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining that is almost always fatal.
Insulation workers installed Johns-Manville products in homes, schools, factories, and ships. They cut and shaped asbestos-containing materials without protective equipment, often in enclosed spaces where fiber concentrations were high.
Family members were exposed when workers came home with asbestos fibers on their clothing. This secondary exposure has caused mesothelioma in wives, children, and others who never worked with asbestos themselves.
Community members in towns where Johns-Manville operated plants faced environmental exposure. In Manville, New Jersey—the town that took the company’s name—residents are still being diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases decades after the plant closed.
Lessons and Legacy
The Johns-Manville case has become a textbook example of corporate misconduct in public health and legal courses. It demonstrates how powerful economic interests can delay regulatory action and suppress scientific evidence, even when lives are at stake.
Several key lessons emerge:
Internal documents matter: The most damning evidence against Johns-Manville came from its own files. The Simpson-Brown letters, the rejected warning recommendations, the suppressed studies—all were company records that eventually became public through litigation discovery.
Bankruptcy can be strategic: Johns-Manville’s 1982 filing showed that bankruptcy law could be used to limit corporate liability, not just to reorganize insolvent companies. This precedent has been followed by many other asbestos defendants and, more recently, by pharmaceutical companies facing opioid litigation.
Justice is slow but possible: It took decades for Johns-Manville to be held accountable. Many victims died before receiving compensation. But the eventual reckoning—billions of dollars in trust fund payments, the public exposure of corporate misconduct, the regulatory changes that saved future lives—demonstrates that accountability is possible even against determined corporate resistance.
The Documents That Changed Everything
When researchers and attorneys finally gained access to Johns-Manville’s internal files, they found correspondence that left no doubt about what company executives knew and when they knew it.
One 1966 memo from a company official stated plainly: “We have been aware for years that some of our asbestos-containing products have been harmful to workers and to users.”
Another document, from 1963, showed that the company’s own insurance carrier had warned that asbestos exposure was causing cancer—and that Johns-Manville had chosen not to share this information with workers.
These documents became central to litigation, helping plaintiffs overcome the industry’s claims of ignorance. They also provided the foundation for regulatory action, demonstrating that the asbestos industry’s safety assurances had been deliberate falsehoods.
Today, the Johns-Manville story serves as a reminder of what happens when corporate interests are allowed to override public health. It is also a testament to the persistence of workers, families, attorneys, and researchers who refused to let the cover-up succeed.
What did Johns-Manville know and when?▼
Company doctors documented elevated lung disease among asbestos workers in the 1930s. A 1935 letter between executives stated “The less said about asbestos, the better off we are.” By the 1960s, their own insurance carrier warned that exposure was causing cancer—yet they chose not to inform workers.
How did Johns-Manville suppress the evidence?▼
The company funded biased research, blocked or delayed unfavorable studies, settled lawsuits quietly with confidentiality agreements, opposed OSHA regulations by claiming scientific uncertainty, and resisted warning labels on products—all while their internal documents showed clear knowledge of the dangers.
Why did a profitable company file for bankruptcy?▼
Johns-Manville filed Chapter 11 in 1982 not because it was insolvent, but as a litigation strategy. Bankruptcy consolidated all claims into a single proceeding, limited total liability, and stopped thousands of pending lawsuits. This became the model for later “strategic bankruptcies” by asbestos defendants.
Can victims still receive compensation from the Manville Trust?▼
Yes. The Manville Trust, established in 1988, continues to pay claims from people who developed mesothelioma, lung cancer, or asbestosis from Johns-Manville asbestos exposure. Over $4 billion has been paid to claimants. Workers exposed decades ago are still being diagnosed due to the long latency period.