Product Description

Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that Keasbey & Mattison Company of Ambler, Pennsylvania manufactured Airfelt sprayed asbestos fireproofing — allegedly one of the earliest sprayed asbestos fireproofing products marketed in the United States. According to publicly filed asbestos litigation records, Keasbey & Mattison was a major early-20th-century asbestos manufacturer whose Ambler operations included asbestos textile and insulation product lines, and Airfelt was allegedly the company’s sprayed fibrous fireproofing offering for structural steel columns, beams, and decks.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned spray-applied asbestos fireproofing in 1973 under 40 CFR Part 61. Keasbey & Mattison Company was dissolved in 1970, prior to the EPA cutoff, but plaintiffs alleged that Airfelt sprayed fireproofing remained in place in commercial and institutional buildings constructed from the 1930s through the company’s closure, exposing renovation, maintenance, and abatement workers for decades afterward.

Workers Exposed

Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that the following trades were exposed to Airfelt sprayed asbestos fireproofing:

  • Sprayed fireproofing applicators and hopper-fillers — mixing and spraying raw asbestos-containing product during application
  • Ironworkers — working on structural steel adjacent to Airfelt application, and cutting or drilling through cured material
  • Insulators — patching and rework of Airfelt around penetrations and joints
  • Building maintenance and HVAC technicians — working above ceilings in plenums containing Airfelt on deck undersides
  • Electricians — running conduit through ceiling voids with sprayed Airfelt
  • Demolition workers — encountering friable Airfelt during renovation and tear-down of pre-1970 buildings
  • Post-1973 abatement contractors and workers — removing legacy Airfelt during building modernization