let me give you the history of asbestos

litigation in one minute in 1966 Claude

Tom plate filed the first third party

asbestos claim in court against 11

asbestos insulation manufacturers he

went to trial and lost

three years later Clarence Burrell filed

virtually the same case in Texas and he

won he was awarded eighty thousand

dollars in 1969. that was a lot of money

and it changed how people with

asbestos-related disease were

compensated it wasn’t limited anymore to

workers compensation now there was the

Second Avenue for money and that was

lawsuits against manufacturers and

Distributors by 1982 Johns Manville the

largest manufacturer of asbestos

products in the United States and the

self-claimed master of asbestos filed

for bankruptcy citing 11

000 pending cases in 1980 Owens Corning

fiberglass The Pink Panther filed for

bankruptcy citing seven billion dollars

of debt the same point the law has

changed initially the law required

traditional causation but for causation

it became watered down and but for cause

became substantial factor and

substantial Factor was watered down to

increased risk the result is that

products that didn’t create dust

traditionally like gaskets and packing

were now squarely in the target of

plaintiff attorneys and even products

that didn’t intentionally contain

asbestos like talcum powder

became targets as of 2021 Johnson and

Johnson put their talc business into

bankruptcy at this point there have been

hundreds of bankruptcies caused by the

asbestos litigation