Premises Description

Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that the Bethlehem Steel Corporation Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts constructed a broad slate of U.S. Navy combatants — battleships, heavy and light cruisers, destroyers, aircraft carriers, and submarines — along with merchant tankers and cargo hulls, from 1913 through yard closure in 1986. Allegedly, both peacetime and wartime production campaigns concentrated asbestos-insulated boilers, steam turbines, high-pressure feedwater and main-steam piping, condensers, and asbestos-containing gaskets and packing inside dense hull compartments where insulation was applied at every stage of outfitting.

Plaintiffs further alleged that in-house lagger crews and outside insulation contractors applied asbestos block, pipe covering, insulating cement, and sprayed limpet inside boiler rooms and engine rooms while pipefitters, boilermakers, machinists, electricians, and welders worked concurrently in the same spaces. Plaintiffs alleged that yard workers also stripped and reinstalled asbestos insulation during drydock repair and modernization work on returning Navy combatants.

Workers Exposed

  • Shipyard insulators/laggers cutting, mixing, and applying block, pipe covering, and sprayed limpet
  • Pipefitters installing and reinstalling asbestos-lagged main steam and feedwater piping
  • Boilermakers rolling tubes and installing asbestos gaskets on boiler manways and fittings
  • Machinists installing turbines, reduction gears, pumps, and valves with asbestos gaskets/packing
  • Electricians pulling asbestos-jacketed cable and installing marine switchboards
  • Welders/burners working adjacent to lagger crews in fireroom compartments
  • Riggers, painters, and laborers transiting insulated spaces during outfitting and repair

If You Worked at Fore River

Plaintiffs alleged that Bethlehem Fore River shipyard workers, especially during WWII peak production and postwar naval combatant delivery, experienced significant daily asbestos exposure from adjacent trades in newly built and returning machinery compartments. Yard workers and household family members have alleged mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestosis linked to Fore River premises exposures.

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