Product Description
Marshall & Williams Company of Providence, Rhode Island, was a longtime U.S. builder of textile calenders, finishing ranges, and coated-fabric machinery — supplying rubber-belt plants, coated-fabric plants, tarp and canvas coating lines, and textile finishing mills across the country. Plaintiffs have alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that Marshall & Williams calenders and drying ranges were assembled with braided asbestos rope compression packing at the calender roll journal bearings, and with asbestos-woven fabric wrap around the steam-heated drying cans that carried and dried the coated web downstream of the calender nip.
According to publicly filed asbestos litigation records, the asbestos pathway on Marshall & Williams calender equipment was allegedly the combination of packed bearings — which had to withstand the enormous nip pressures generated between coating rolls — and the drying-can fabric wrap, which allegedly released respirable fibers during scheduled bearing overhauls and drying-can re-wrapping.
Workers Exposed
Plaintiffs allegedly identified as exposed to Marshall & Williams calender asbestos in publicly filed litigation include:
- Calender room operators (coated fabric, belting) allegedly exposed while running the calender line with asbestos-packed bearings and asbestos-wrapped drying cans in the immediate work area
- Textile mill millwrights and mechanical maintenance allegedly exposed while repacking calender roll bearings, cutting braided asbestos rope to length, and re-wrapping drying cans with new asbestos fabric
- Card-room and spinning-room operators and textile mill weavers and loom fixers in integrated mills allegedly cross-exposed through shared plant ventilation
- Rubber plant millwrights and mechanical maintenance allegedly cross-exposed at rubber-belt and coated-fabric plants where calender lines ran downstream of Banbury and two-roll mill compounding