Product Description
International Harvester Company, later Navistar International, allegedly manufactured farm tractors under the Farmall and IH brands — including the Cub, Super A, Super C, H, M, 300, 400, 460, 560, 706, 806, 966, 1066, 1466, and later 86-series, 88-series, and 50-series tractors — supplied with asbestos-containing brake linings and brake bands in the differential-brake and steering-brake assemblies. According to publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation, IH farm-tractor brake systems used either external-contracting or internal-expanding drum-brake designs in which chrysotile-asbestos friction linings were bonded or riveted to steel bands and shoes.
Plaintiffs allegedly identified IH tractor brake linings supplied as original equipment through IH tractor-assembly plants and as replacement parts distributed through IH dealer parts networks and, after the 1985 IH agricultural-line sale to Tenneco (parent of Case), through Case-IH dealer parts networks. Publicly filed litigation records allegedly reference bonded lining kits, riveted lining sets, and complete brake-band assemblies for the various Farmall and IH tractor families.
Workers Exposed
According to publicly filed U.S. asbestos litigation, workers allegedly exposed to IH farm-tractor brake linings included IH and Case-IH dealership service technicians, farm-shop mechanics performing owner repairs, independent tractor mechanics in rural service shops, and vocational agriculture instructors and students. Plaintiffs allegedly described tractor brake overhauls that required splitting the tractor at the differential or steering-clutch housing, exposing the brake drums, scraping worn bonded lining from steel shoes and bands, drilling and riveting new linings, and blowing accumulated dark brake dust from housings with compressed air. These operations allegedly released chrysotile fibers into the mechanic’s breathing zone.
Bystander workers — dealership parts personnel, apprentices, farm family members assisting a shop repair, and operators standing by during field-side repairs — allegedly inhaled fibers dispersed by tractor brake work. Farm-implement dealership shops across the Farm Belt allegedly handled IH tractor brake service on a seasonal cycle tied to spring planting and fall harvest windows.