Document K6474b7JdNON5mogQ7oRyDjd0

FILE NAME: Garlock (GAR) DATE: 1977 Aug 30 DOC#: GAR088 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Meeting Minutes with Attendee List - Product Liability Committee receive:. SEP 277 law departm ent GARLOCK INC. PRODUCT LIABILITY COMMITTEE MINUTES DATE: August 30, 1977 - 9:00 a.m. In Attendance: Not Attending: II Burdulis F DeRosa R Guild D Holmes A Kuznuk J Guffey E Kuhnen J Lynn M Panarites H Schaefer L Sementini C Terr G LeRoy R Stay JJ-v . - 1* Labelling Program - Messrs. Guffey and Price are working on the overall labelling program and will have a report for the next Product Liability meeting. 2- labelling Program for Asbestos - A. Advertising - Advertising far Hydraulic Components and Compression Packing are now carrying the 1CAUTION' label on it-. Mr. Stay was not in attendance,therefore, we do not lenow what other steps have been taken to label advertising now in-house or other types of advertising. B. C/A Sheet - Labels have been ordered for C/A sheet and should be received shortly. They are approximately 1" x 2" in size. C. Spool Heads - Mr. Burdulis, who was attending for Mr. Guffey, said that a definite decision had not been made as to hew they would be labelling the spool heads for braided asbestos material. However, they had talked about having it printed on the spool head instead of stamping it on. D. Labels on boxes that package our products. Nothing has been done on this yet. E. Letters to Distributors - Mr. Stay was not in attendance and there fore we were unable to find out if this had been done as yet. Mr. Lynn informed us tint according to our corporate legal department that the "CAUTION" label should be used and not the "DANGER" label. 3. Each Product Center was to list all products and find out what their end use is. As of this meeting, none of the product centers liad accomplished this. Pk!'del IJAI!LI ( : CO.' uLxjjJ! IiLMiTi' Tapp 2 8/30/77 M. Material Data Sheets - Mr. Panarites stated that per Mr. Townsend's request that we were not to complete and return any Material Data Sheets that we received from customers. If a customer insisted ori this information and would not place an order with us unless we com plied then Mr. Panarites should be informed and it would loe discussed further. Mr. Panarites asked that the cornndttee inform all their people that these MDS sheets should not be completed. 5. Acrylonitrile Regulations - There was a brief discussion on acrylonitrile but the consensus of the group was that nothing should be done until definite regulations or decisions were made regarding the manufacture of tiiis product. 6. The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 27th, 8:00 a.m. in the Personnel Conference Room, bldg. 6-1. 7. Any additions or changes in these minutes should be brought to the attention of Mr. Panarites, Chairman. ) /bid ) SECE'VED 77 VvLOCX INC. RE: DATE: PRODUCT LIABILITY COMMITTEE MINUTES October 25, 1977, 9:30 a.m. / PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT In attendance: Not attending: Guests: J Guffey R Guild H Hughes A Kuzmuk D Holmes E Kuhnen R Stay P Hanke J Kolwerda J Maher W Rudolph G Leroy J Lynn M Panarites H Schaefer 1. For the benefit of our guests, Mr. Panarites reviewed what the conmittee had acccsiplished since the first meeting that took place in June. Copies of the minutes of all the meetings were given to the guests. / 2. Mr. Guffey recently attended an A.T.I. Conference (Asbestos Technical Institute) and he enlightened us on the new regula tions in California which requires the end user to register with the state when any hazardous materials are used. The state does not consider all farms of asbestos as hazardous in themselves but does consider any asbestos products labeled with the "Caution" label as hazardous. Therefore any product that we (Garlock) now label would be considered hazardous and would require the end user to register. Raybestos-Manhattan received a lot of feedback from their custo mers that indicated they would lose business to companies who do not label. They have converted to a new warning label which: A. California does not require to be registered. B. Continues to satisfy the goal of warning users of their products. This new label (Shown below) will be used on all dust supressed cloth, Compression Packings and Compressed sheet at Garlock. It will be used in all locations rather than having separate inven tories for California. continued............. PRODUCT LIABILITY COM-OTTEE MINUTES 1 NOTICE Page ? 10/25/77 This asbestos product is manufactured with a dust supressing binder for the express purpose of locking-in fibers during normal use. Care should be used while handling all asbestos products so as to avoid abuse and excessive dust emission. For detailed information consult the recommended work practices handbook Use and Handling of Asbestos Textile Products published by the Asbestos Information Association. A copy will be sent to you on request. Comp/izMion Packing PLvision GanZock Inc Sodui, New Vonk 14505 t 3. Mr. Hanke asked that Mr. Guffey contact Johns/Manville to see what they are doing and also to contact R/M and find out who they contacted in California to get the okay on the above notice. This information to be forwarded to Mr. Hanke. The question, "If a distributor does not use the labeling and we don't know about it, will we be held liable?" Probably not, however, if we do know and we don't do anything about it, we would most likely be liable. General consensus was that the sales persons should check out our distributors once in a while to see if they are labeling like they are suppose to. The sales person should report back by way of a letter as to what he found so we have record of it. Messrs. LeRoy, Schaefer, Stay and Lynn met previously to this meeting to discuss putting products in proper "risk criteria". Because of the hundreds of various products we make, it pre sented many complications as to how this could be done and therefore, Mr. Panarites asked Mr. Holwerda if from his ex perience at other divisions could he help us out. Mr. Holwerda pointed out that at one of the divisions they set up their risk criteria by the number of law suits for a particular product. Mr. Guffey said that Compression Packing was new recording case histories of product applications (i.e. when a part was installed and how long it lasted). As was pointed out, the products we make 'wear out'.... we make replacement parts. Therefore, at what point does our liability cease because the part should have been replaced. Mr. Rudolph said there were too many variables to this question and it would depend on the particular incident. Sane discussion regarding special meetings of our distributors and sales people regarding product liability and their involvement with it. PRODUCT LIABILITY C O M ZTTEE MINUTES Page 3 10/25/77 H. Many distributors have been sending in letters requesting whether Garlock would carry them under their Product Liability Insurance. All of these letters are being referred to Mr. Smith for reply. 5. Mr. Holwerda pointed out that the Consumer Protection Safety Commission requires that a report be issued should an injury occur to someone when using a "consumer product". This report must be filed within 10 days to the conmission by the company who made the product. After sane discussion, it was decided that we, Garlock, do not make a "consumer product"; we only maker parts that go into a consumer product and therefore this would not apply to us. 6. The meeting adjourned at 11:00 a.m. 7. The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 29, 1977, 8:00 a.m. in the Personnel Conference Room, bldg. 6-1. 8. Any additions or changes in these minutes should be brought to the attention of Mr. Panarites, Chairman, ) /bid