Tyler Pipe Industries (TPI) is a plumbing product company based in Tyler, Texas. The company began adding asbestos to many of the products it manufactured in the mid-1960s. Additionally, it used so much asbestos in its worksites and was so negligent in its management that hundreds of employees were sickened with asbestos-related diseases, including malignant pleural mesothelioma.
The company’s manufacturing plant and its foundry were accused of exposing workers to dangerous levels of asbestos, and after losing two multi-million dollar lawsuits and facing hundreds of others, its parent company Swan Transportation filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001. The Swan Transportation Asbestos Trust was established in 2003.[1]
Tyler Pipe Industries Company History
Founded in 1935, in Tyler, Texas, the Tyler Pipe Industry was originally known as the Tyler Iron and Foundry Company. As the country emerged from the Great Depression, Tyler expanded its operations and product line from cast iron soil pipe and fittings to specification products. By 1950, demand for its products was so great that it installed centrifugal pipe machines and a 108” cupola to accommodate high-volume melting.[2]
The company introduced the industry’s first ten-foot soil pipe in 1959, and in 1961 it introduced the TY-SEAL compression gasket, a coupling device that eliminated the use of molten lead joints for joining pipe sections. In 1963, the company purchased Wade, Inc. and began marketing a full line of plumbing and drainage specification products. In 1964, Tyler purchased East Penn Foundry Company of Macungie, Pennsylvania, and began producing no-hub pipes and fittings. By 1968, the company had changed its name to Tyler Pipe Industries. It later sold the company to Swan Transportation and became a subsidiary of Tyler Corporation.[2]
In 1979, the company marked the sale of the 100 millionth TY-SEAL compression gasket, and by 1995 when the company was purchased by McWane, Inc., it had foundries in Texas and Pennsylvania and a coupling/gasket manufacturing facility in Missouri. In addition to making pressure fittings, it also generated castings for agriculture and automotive businesses.[2]
Today, Tyler Pipe and Coupling is one of America’s largest producers of cast iron soil pipe, fittings, and couplings. Its products have been used in buildings as diverse as the AT&T Stadium in Dallas and New York City’s Freedom Tower.[2]
How Did Tyler Pipe Industry Use Asbestos?
Asbestos was a mineral that was used extensively throughout the 20th century for its insulating and strengthening capabilities. This was particularly true in high-heat environments like foundries. Though foundry workers did not know that asbestos was carcinogenic, many of the company owners were informed of the material’s dangers via industry publications but chose to continue using it because it was inexpensive and contributed to their profits.
Tyler Pipe Industries made extensive use of asbestos and silica in the manufacture of its plumbing products, including its pipes, valves, and the popular TY-SEAL compression gaskets. Workers were exposed to asbestos from refractory products, insulating cement, and fireproof cloth that was used in the foundry. The company also tasked workers with burying barrels of asbestos waste and cleaning out containers with asbestos residue.[3]
A study published in the journal Occupational Environment Medicine in 1998 examined the causes of death among 1,130 former Tyler Pipe Industry workers involved in manufacturing the company’s asbestos pipe insulation materials. The study was notable because the company exclusively used the amosite type of asbestos in its processes. This made the study’s results valuable in evaluating the material’s dangers. The researchers concluded that there is a link between amosite asbestos and respiratory malignancy as well as mesothelioma, noting that “a highly significant number of excess deaths were found for all causes; for all malignant neoplasms; for cancers of the respiratory system as a whole, lung cancer, and other respiratory cancers…. There were six deaths from mesothelioma: four pleural and two peritoneal … about 3% of all deaths.”[4]
Tyler Pipe Industries Asbestos Products
Tyler Pipe Industries’ employees were exposed to significant levels of asbestos while they worked in the company’s foundries and manufacturing sites, but the asbestos products they manufactured were limited to asbestos cement pipes and asbestos pipe insulation. Both of these products presented the risk of asbestos exposure to those who worked with them: Asbestos fibers became airborne and easily inhaled when asbestos-containing cement pipes were cut or sanded for fit, and the same was true of asbestos pipe insulation.
Workers at Risk of Asbestos Exposure from Tyler Pipe Industries
The majority of those who were endangered by Tyler Pipe Industries were the laborers who worked as the company’s employees. Most employees exposed to asbestos on the job are restricted from filing suit against their employers. Instead, they can request workers’ compensation and file personal claims against the third parties whose products they’ve been exposed to in their workplace. Despite this, two groups of Tyler Pipe Industries’ employees successfully sued their employer, leading to multimillion-dollar awards.
The claims against Tyler Pipe were successful because they were supported by citations from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration and expert witnesses who stated that the company had demonstrated “little respect for human health and safety.” Tyler Pipe Industries’ failure to provide a reasonably safe place to work or an adequate safety program was blamed for the workers’ asbestos-related diseases, and the jury found the company negligent in having caused their conditions.
In addition to those who worked in the company’s foundries, workers’ family members were put at risk of exposure to asbestos carried home on their loved ones’ clothing, hair, or skin. This type of secondary exposure has been linked to mesothelioma and other diseases in the same way that those who worked directly with the material, leading to concerns that the loved ones of Tyler Pipe Industries’ employees may also have inhaled and been sickened by the deadly carcinogenic fibers.
Outside of Tyler Pipe Industries employees, the company’s asbestos-containing cement pipes and asbestos pipe insulation created risk for the following types of workers:
- Plumbers
- Metal workers
- Pipe insulators
- Laborers
- Welders
- Boiler workers
- Construction workers
Asbestos Lawsuits Against Tyler Pipe Industries
While Tyler Pipe Industries’ products have been linked to cases of asbestos-related diseases among workers exposed to them, it was the unsafe, asbestos-filled conditions at Tyler Pipe Industries’ foundries that led to most of the claims filed against the company. Those claims led to multi-million-dollar verdicts.
- A $9 million damages verdict was awarded to eight Tyler Pipe employees who were exposed to asbestos from either cleaning out cupolas by chipping out asbestos residue, working around refractory products, or burying barrels of asbestos waste. The workers had been employed at Tyler between 25 and 37 years. All had been diagnosed with asbestosis.
- A group of seven Tyler workers exposed to asbestos from refractory products, insulating cement, and cloth were awarded $17 million in damages.
Both juries hearing the cases awarded the employees compensation for pain and mental anguish, loss of earning capacity, physical impairment, and medical care.[3]
Bankruptcy and Asbestos Trust Fund
The asbestos-contaminated atmosphere and products at Tyler Pipe Industries had devastating effects on its employees. By 1997 the company was facing hundreds of personal injury lawsuits filed by employees and their families. Having already paid nearly $100 million in settlements and the $26 million assigned by the juries in the two asbestos injury lawsuits, its owner, Swan Transportation, Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and established the Swan Asbestos and Silica Trust in 2003.
Sixteen years later after the company filed for bankruptcy, a federal suit was filed by a group of former Tyler Pipe workers, accusing the company administering the trust of misusing its funds and refusing to pay claims.[5]
What to Do if You Were Exposed to Asbestos at Tyler Pipe Industries
People who worked at Tyler Pipe Industries, their family members, and those who used its asbestos-containing products are all at risk for asbestos-related diseases. Many have already been diagnosed with asbestos, and with their exposure having been so extensive and mesothelioma having a latency period of fifty to sixty years, they remain at risk for further diagnoses.
If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with mesothelioma and worked at Tyler Pipe Industries or with their products, you may be eligible to file a claim with the company’s asbestos trust fund.
Navigating the complexities of filing an asbestos claim can be a challenge, but an experienced asbestos lawyer can smooth the way.
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