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Non-Tech : Owens Corning(OWC)Safest Buy On Wall Street? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Leo Francis who wrote (23)	11/7/1997 8:14:00 PM
From: Leo Francis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 62

Owens Corning Sues Tobacco Companies for Harm Caused by Smoking TOLEDO, Ohio, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Owens Corning (NYSE:OWC) and a subsidiary have filed suit against the tobacco industry for damages incurred by smokers exposed to asbestos. The lawsuit asserts that asbestos workers who smoked incurred lung cancer, asbestosis and other diseases at rates far greater than those who did not smoke. While former asbestos manufacturers have paid billions for those injuries, tobacco companies have paid nothing. Owens Corning says the U.S. Surgeon General has determined -- and substantial other scientific and medical evidence confirms -- that cigarette smoking is a substantial cause in the development of lung cancer and other illnesses in persons exposed to asbestos. The complaint charges that if asbestos workers had not smoked, and had not continued to smoke after their exposure to asbestos, most asbestos-claim injuries would not have occurred. The action seeks to recover the tobacco companies' share for injuries to smokers exposed to asbestos whose claims were paid by Owens Corning and Fibreboard Corporation -- now a subsidiary of Owens Corning -- which total in the billions of dollars. The lawsuit takes advantage of the recent repeal of a 10-year ban on product liability lawsuits enjoyed by cigarette manufacturers in California -- one that tobacco interests are now trying to re-impose through Congressional enactment of the national tobacco settlement. Tobacco companies were immune from most product liability actions in California because of a 1987 state statute obtained by the tobacco industry. Those special protections for cigarette manufacturers were repealed by the California legislature on September 29, 1997. If the recently proposed national tobacco settlement were to be enacted by Congress without change, the suit filed by Owens Corning yesterday would be barred because the proposed settlement retroactively eliminates suits brought after June 9, 1997. The complaint charges that now, when the extent of the tobacco companies' concealment and misrepresentation of the causes of these injuries is becoming clear, the tobacco companies have brokered a ''tobacco settlement'' to limit their liabilities. Owens Corning and Fibreboard -- like the other asbestos defendants, settlement trusts and victims themselves -- receive nothing under the proposed tobacco settlement. The suit was filed Thursday, November 6, in California State Court, Oakland, California. Defendants are the American Tobacco Company, R.J. Reynolds, BAT Industries, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, Philip Morris, the Liggett Group, and Lorillard Tobacco Company. Headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, Owens Corning is a world leader in high performance glass fiber composites and building materials systems with sales in 1996 of $3.8 billion. The company employs approximately 24,000 people in more than 30 countries. In July this year, Owens Corning completed the acquisition of Fibreboard and merged the company with a subsidiary. As a result, Fibreboard Corporation is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Owens Corning. Both companies are involved with asbestos litigation as a result of making products in the past containing asbestos, and both companies stopped making products containing asbestos in the early 1970s. According to the terms of a national settlement awaiting approval by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Fibreboard's asbestos liabilities will be shifted to an independent settlement trust established to pay compensation to victims. This week's action was taken in part because the independent trustees of the Fibreboard Settlement Trust have urged the company to take appropriate steps to protect any trust rights or claims that might be lost or limited by the currently proposed tobacco settlement. SOURCE Owens Corning