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The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the landmark decision
of Borel v. Fibreboard Paper Products that an asbestos
manufacturer could be held strictly liable for failing to adequately
warn a worker that asbestos could cause terminal illnesses.
Equally important, the court said that manufacturers had known
about the dangers of inhaling asbestos as early as the 1930s and
had failed to test asbestos to determine its effect on workers,
even though they had a duty to do so. Since the hazards posed
by asbestos were clearly foreseeable to the manufacturers, the
Fifth Circuit said they had a duty to adequately warn of these
hazards. This they failed to do. Instead, they remained silent.
The manufacturers' silence -- internal company documents more
accurately depict a conscious "coverup" of the product's
hazards -- put at risk about 20 million Americans who have been
occupationally exposed to asbestos. Hundreds of thousands of these
workers are expected to die from asbestos-induced cancer.
In Borel, the worker inhaled asbestos dust during more than 30
years as an insulation worker. He knew it was bad for him, but
didn't know it could kill him -- principally because the manufacturer
never warned workers that asbestos was a carcinogen. As a result
of his exposures, he contracted asbestosis, which caused a form
of lung cancer known as mesothelimoa. (Asbestosis is a form of
pneumoconiosis, the general term for all dust diseases of the
lung.) The worker died of the disease before trial and his widow
continued the action.
The immediate effect of the Fifth Circuit's decision was that
it upheld the jury verdict in favor of the widow. In the wake
of Borel, however, other workers exposed to asbestos have won
jury verdicts for compensatory and punitive damages against asbestos
manufacturers. Today, workers are protected by stricter standards
and asbestos insulation is no longer sprayed in buildings and
schools. Johns-Manville, one of the asbestos manufacturers named
by Borel, has sought protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy
Code.
Borel v. Fibreboard Paper Prods. Co., 493 F.2d 1076 (5th
Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 869 (1974).
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