Product Description
Johns-Manville Corporation manufactured and supplied a family of rigid asbestos marine bulkhead board and interior fireproofing panel products for use aboard U.S. Navy combatants, auxiliaries, and commercial vessels during the asbestos era. Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that these JM marine boards were specified — often as a JM alternate to USG’s Marinite — for the same shipboard uses:
- Bulkhead lining in engine rooms, fireroom bulkheads, and machinery spaces
- Joiner-bulkhead panels in crew berthing, mess decks, wardrooms, and passageways
- Overhead fireproofing panels in machinery-space overheads and adjacent compartments
- Fire-boundary panels at compartment transitions rated for shipboard fire and blast survival
- Interior finish sheathing on Navy and commercial vessels through the asbestos era
The board was supplied in rigid sheet form and was routinely cut, scribed, drilled, sanded, and screwed into place by shipyard joiners, marine carpenters, insulators, and Navy hull technicians during new construction, drydock overhaul, and battle-damage repair. Each of these operations is alleged to have released respirable chrysotile and amphibole asbestos fiber into the breathing zones of shipyard trades — particularly in confined shipboard compartments with limited ventilation.
Johns-Manville is a corporate-trust defendant under the 11 U.S.C. § 524(g) bankruptcy-trust system through the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust.
Workers Exposed
- Insulators (HFIAW Locals) cutting and fitting JM marine board in shipboard machinery spaces
- Marine carpenters and shipyard joiners installing bulkhead lining and interior sheathing
- Navy hull technicians and damage controlmen during shipboard damage-repair work
- Shipfitters and shipyard trades at U.S. Navy shipyards and private commercial shipyards
- Boilermakers and pipefitters during fireroom and engine-room bulkhead rebuild after equipment work