The first asbestos lawsuit filed against the Johns Manville Corporation was filed in 1966, in Beaumont, TX.  The defendants included ten other companies that used asbestos.  The verdict was returned in 1969 in favor of the defendants.  The workers were awarded only $80,000.

In 1974, Reba Rudkin filed suit against the Johns Manville Corporation.  Rudkin developed asbestos after having worked at their manufacturing facilities in Pittsburg, CA.  Normally a company is protected by workers' compensation, but letters were produced that showed evidence of conspiracy and fraud perpetrated by Johns Manville Corp. in suppressing knowledge about the risks and dangers of asbestos.

In 1981 the California Supreme Court ruled that workers could sue in cases such as the Rudkin lawsuit.  This made it possible for other Johns Manville Pittsburg plant workers to file lawsuits.  In February, 1982 a verdict was reached against Johns Manville Corp. and $150,000 was granted to the workers.  By August of that same year Johns Manville filed for bankruptcy protection to avoid the liabilities and paying of compensation associated with the mesothelioma lawsuits.

By 1986 the Johns Manville Corp. had regrouped and began operations as the Schuller Corp. of Denver.  Johns Manville Corp. was the first major company to respond to mesothelioma litigation in this way but very soon afterward they were followed by nearly 70 other companies that used asbestos filing for bankruptcy protection.

Malignant mesothelioma is a type of cancer that is most commonly caused by asbestos exposure.  Most people who have developed malignant mesothelioma were employed at jobs where they were exposed to and inhaled asbestos. There have even been cases where a family member developed mesothelioma from breathing in asbestos dust and particles when handling laundry.

Malignant mesothelioma is a relatively rare form of cancer, but during the past 20 years reported cases have steadily increased. The incidence of mesothelioma cases have been estimated at 15 per 1,000,000 people in the U.S. in 2004. In other industrialized western nations the incidence ranges from 7 to 40 per 1,000,000 people, depending upon the degree of exposure during the past few decades.

Roughly 27.5 million people were exposed to asbestos at their jobs in the U.S. between 1940 and 1979. From 1973 to 1984 the rate of mesothelioma diagnosis tripled.  Deaths resulting from malignant mesothelioma increased from 2000 per year in 1980 to 3,000 in the late 1990s.

The first lawsuit filed against a company that used asbestos was in 1929.  The parties involved in that case settled the lawsuit with the attorneys agreeing not to pursue further mesothelioma related lawsuits. Since that time there have been many lawsuits filed against asbestos manufacturers and companies that use asbestos in their operations.  The number of new asbestos lawsuits filed against U.S. corporations rose from 20,000 in the early 1990s to 90,000 by 2001. Costs associated with lawsuits involving mesothelioma have been bee estimated to range between 200 and 275 billion dollars in the U.S. alone.

Asbestos disease, asbestosis, was reported for the first time in Britain in 1908, almost 30 years before Franklin Brooks was born. By 1918, the U.S. government, in issuing its first report on the substance, urged further investigation into the health aspects of asbestos.  As a result, U.S. and Canadian insurance companies decided to stop selling life insurance to those who worked with asbestos.  Ten years later, in 1928, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported on a young woman who died of asbestosis.  Manville conducted its own study in 1949, finding 534 asbestos workers, out of the 780 tested, with lung changes. The 1950s and 1960s saw a flood of reports warning of the health dangers associated with asbestos.

Despite these well-documented dangers, Manville allowed the use of asbestos to proliferate until it became an integral part of the marketplace and of people's lives.  Today millions of Americans continue to be exposed to asbestos.  From schools to homes, to drum brake linings, to office buildings, to high school classrooms, to open piles of asbestos wastes, to home appliances, to drinking water supplies, asbestos is almost everywhere.

Manville's attitude toward safety was perhaps best revealed in testimony given by the company's medical director under oath in 1976.  When asked whether he had ever advised Manville to place warning labels on its asbestos products, Kenneth W. Smith said the company, "Had to take into consideration the effects of everything they did, and if the applications of a caution label identifying a product as hazardous would cut out sales, there would be serious financial implications."  They had to, "... judge the necessity of the label v. the consequences of placing the label on the product." he said.