Premises Description

Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that Corning Glass Works (renamed Corning Incorporated in 1989) operated large glass-melting furnaces, forehearths, forming machines, and lehr annealing ovens at its Corning, New York headquarters plants and at satellite specialty-glass facilities across the United States. Corning is publicly known for Pyrex borosilicate glass (introduced 1915), cathode-ray tube (CRT) television picture-tube glass, Corelle / CorningWare consumer glass-ceramic, optical and ophthalmic glass, and, beginning in the 1970s, fiber-optic waveguide glass.

Plaintiffs alleged that each of these product lines depended on continuously operating regenerative glass-melting tanks running at 1,400 to 1,600 degrees Celsius, and that these tanks and their auxiliary equipment were allegedly constructed and re-lined with asbestos-containing high-temperature refractory brick, insulating firebrick, block insulation, millboard, castable refractory, thermal-block cement, expansion-joint packing, and high-temperature gaskets around furnace crowns, sidewalls, breast walls, port necks, regenerator checker chambers, forehearths, feeder mechanisms, and lehr annealing tunnels.

Plaintiffs further alleged that periodic furnace cold-repairs, hot-patches, tank pulls, checker rebuilds, and lehr rebuilds required tearing out and replacing asbestos-containing refractory and insulation, releasing respirable fibers into the plant atmosphere.

Workers Exposed

Plaintiffs alleged that the following trades faced asbestos exposure at Corning Glass Works premises:

  • Glass-tank bricklayers and refractory masons who cut, laid, and demolished asbestos-containing insulating firebrick and block behind the working tank
  • Insulators who applied and removed asbestos block, millboard, and thermal cement on furnace exteriors, forehearths, and lehr shells
  • Maintenance mechanics and millwrights who replaced asbestos gaskets and packing on forehearth gates, forming-machine take-out equipment, and lehr conveyors
  • Glass workers and machine operators working downwind of hot-patch and rebuild activity
  • Electricians and instrument techs working around asbestos-lagged forehearth channels and lehr tunnels