More than 1,300 damage claims filed on behalf of former Akron-area rubber, auto workers who suffered from asbestos exposure

Ed Meyer

Mary Ann Andrews felt she needed to honor the memory of her husband by attending a court hearing Monday morning.

James W. Andrews was a World War II Navy veteran who went on to work in Akron for 41 years as a welder at Goodyear. After battling various forms of cancer, he died in 2001 at age 73.

The Andrews case was among more than 1,300 damage claims filed in Summit County Probate Court on behalf of the heirs of Akron-area rubber and auto workers who died or developed serious illnesses from exposure to asbestos.

Following a June 15 article in the Beacon Journal about the court’s involvement in attempting to locate possible heirs, calls began pouring in.

Probate Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer said her office received more than 200 emails and calls in the past week. Local attorney Thomas Bevan, whose firm specializes in asbestos litigation, said his office received nearly 300.

Mary Ann Andrews was one of about 30 area residents who went to Monday’s hearing to begin the formal process of filling out paperwork for the asbestos-related claims.

“I think my husband would be satisfied and at peace,” she said afterward.

A fund totaling $80 million was set up in 2004 after insurance giant Travelers Cos. reached a settlement with attorneys representing tens of thousands of U.S. rubber workers, boilermakers and other laborers who had filed asbestos-related claims from as far back as the 1980s.

Travelers insured Johns Manville Corp. of Denver — the largest U.S. manufacturer of asbestos-containing products for more than half a century.

A lengthy series of appeals delayed payouts until the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court in New York, where claims had been consolidated, ordered Travelers last summer to pay up.

Damage claims — no longer under legal challenge — range from $2,100 to $23,000, based on medical diagnoses for various asbestos-related illnesses.

In a PowerPoint presentation, Bevan laid out the long history of case litigation stemming, in large part, from corporate records obtained from U.S. tire makers, auto companies and other manufacturers that used asbestos in many of their product lines and plant insulation systems.

One such document, from the 1939 corporate archives of Goodyear, showed the company’s medical director issuing a warning at a meeting in Atlantic City, N.J., about what could be done to protect workers from the dangers of asbestos dust and the disease, asbestosis.

An internal company inspection report, in fact, “showed the operation was exceedingly dirty with asbestos [particles] the size of snowflakes drifting through the air in great concentrations,” Bevan said.

In that department alone, Bevan said, about 20 workers were afflicted years later by cancer and that most died of mesothelioma.

Lydia Herring, 78, attended the hearing on behalf of her brother, James “Jack” Herrin Sr., a former B.F. Goodrich worker who was diagnosed with asbestosis, she said, and died last month at age 90.

Since reading about the hearing in the newspaper, Herring said she has been trying to contact her brothers’ two sons, one in Florida and the other in Texas.

“I’m just here to make sure they get what they deserve, because my brother went through a whole lot of stuff from this,” she said.

The court appointed an independent administrator to begin finalizing paperwork that will go to the special claims company handling the payout fund.

Bevan said it is expected that the company will have reviewed all claims by early August.

Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com.