A Wall Street Journal article has announced that a suit was filed earlier this week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan against Johns-Manville Corporation on behalf of plaintiffs from England, Greece, and Malta who claim they were exposed to asbestos from Johns-Manville products while serving aboard active duty U.S. war ships in their own country and in places on U.S. soil as well.

Johns-Manville, one of the first companies to declare bankruptcy due to asbestos-related obligations, filed Chapter 11 in 1982. A trust was later set up to compensate those who were sickened due to the asbestos contained in the company’s building products, many of which were used aboard U.S. Navy ships for decades.

The plaintiffs in the most recently filed lawsuit against Johns-Manville claim they are being denied compensation from the aforementioned trust because they are not U.S. citizens. Most are suffering from diseases such as mesothelioma, asbestosis, and gastrointestinal cancer, illnesses they say were caused by exposure to toxic asbestos dust and fiber that came from the company’s products used in boiler rooms, engine rooms, and other confined areas on the ships on which they worked. Some of the plaintiffs are family members of already deceased shipyard workers.

“In the face of both domestic and international law to the contrary, let alone common sense, the trust and the [trust’s claims processing company] have each taken the position that active naval warships of the United States Navy, while being repaired, maintained, serviced, or refurbished at both civilian and military shipyards of other nations and the United States, somehow lost their sovereignty as territory of this country,” the plaintiffs wrote.

Attorneys for Johns-Manville, however, say that these are not “standard” claims and that the trust opposes the plaintiffs’ arguments. They will likely move to dismiss the lawsuit. The plaintiffs say they just want the same rights as U.S. and Canadian citizens who have filed for compensation.

Thus far, Johns-Manville – which emerged from bankruptcy in 1988 – has paid more than $4.2 billion in asbestos personal injury claims.

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