Honeywell International (Bendix Corporation)

Company History: From Bendix to Allied Signal to Honeywell

The Bendix Corporation was founded in 1924 by Vincent Bendix, a prolific inventor and industrialist who built a commercial empire around automotive parts — most importantly, the four-wheel brake system. By the 1930s, Bendix had become the dominant American supplier of brake friction materials, and its products were standard equipment on vehicles manufactured by Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, and virtually every other major automaker of the era.

Bendix brake linings were made with chrysotile (white) asbestos, which was prized for its heat resistance and durability. Asbestos was blended into the friction material to help brake pads and shoe linings withstand the intense heat generated by repeated stopping. At its peak, the Bendix Friction Materials Division operated major manufacturing plants in Troy, New York, and Green Island, New York — both of which employed hundreds of workers in direct contact with raw asbestos fibers. The company also maintained production facilities in South Bend, Indiana, which served as its corporate headquarters for many years.

Internal Bendix documents, which have been obtained through litigation discovery, reveal that company scientists were aware of asbestos health hazards as early as the 1960s. Correspondence from Bendix researchers described the potential for brake mechanics to inhale significant asbestos fibers during service operations, yet the company continued to sell asbestos-containing brake linings without changing its formulation or issuing substantive warnings to mechanics. This evidence of corporate knowledge has been central to the thousands of lawsuits that have followed.

In 1983, Bendix Corporation merged with Allied Chemical Corporation to form Allied-Signal Inc. The merged company retained Bendix's extensive product lines, including its asbestos-containing friction materials. Although Bendix had phased out chrysotile asbestos from its brake formulations by the early 1980s due to increasing regulatory pressure, its products installed before that transition remained in service on vehicles for many years afterward, continuing to expose mechanics during routine brake service.

The next major corporate transformation came in 1999, when Allied-Signal Inc. completed a merger with Honeywell Inc. to form the present-day Honeywell International. This merger brought Honeywell into the center of one of the largest ongoing asbestos litigation dockets in American history. As the successor company that absorbed the Bendix liabilities, Honeywell International has defended and resolved tens of thousands of asbestos personal injury claims. Unlike many asbestos defendants that sought bankruptcy protection, Honeywell remains a large, financially solvent corporation — which means victims must pursue claims through direct litigation rather than through a trust fund.

Bendix and NARCO Products Containing Asbestos

The asbestos liability that Honeywell inherited through the Bendix and NARCO lines covers two entirely different categories of products sold to two different sets of workers and industries. Understanding which products you or your family member was exposed to is the first step in determining your legal options.

Bendix brake linings were sold through automotive parts distributors, fleet supply chains, and directly to vehicle manufacturers as original equipment. They were not sold only under the Bendix name — in some markets, the same friction material was sold under distributor house brands, meaning a mechanic who never saw the Bendix label may still have been working with Bendix-manufactured product.

Key Manufacturing and Corporate Facilities

Asbestos exposure linked to Honeywell and Bendix occurred at both manufacturing facilities — where workers processed raw asbestos fibers — and in the field, where mechanics serviced the finished products. The following table identifies the principal locations associated with asbestos liability.

Brake Dust: The Mechanic's Disease

For most of the twentieth century, brake service was one of the most common automotive maintenance tasks performed across garages, dealerships, fleet shops, and military motor pools in the United States. The procedure was also one of the most reliably dangerous sources of occupational asbestos exposure for workers who had no idea they were at risk.

When brake shoes or drum assemblies wore down and required replacement, the standard shop practice was to blow out the accumulated dust inside the brake drum using a compressed air hose before installing new linings. This created a visible cloud of fine particulate — a mixture of road grime, metal shavings, rubber residue, and asbestos fibers. A mechanic leaning into a wheel well while blowing out a drum was inhaling that cloud directly, often for hours every working day.

Unlike insulation removal or pipe work — where asbestos fibers could be seen as visible loose material — brake dust looked no different from ordinary automotive grime. There were no warning labels on Bendix brake shoes alerting mechanics to the asbestos content, and for decades no industry-wide guidance recommended protective measures. Many mechanics recall working throughout their careers without ever being told they were handling an asbestos-containing product.

The dangers of this exposure route were compounded by chrysotile fiber's aerodynamic properties. Chrysotile asbestos fibers are long and easily airborne, and they remain suspended in still workshop air for extended periods after the initial disturbance. A mechanic who blew out a drum at one end of a shop could expose colleagues working at nearby bays even if those colleagues were not directly involved in the brake job.

OSHA began regulating occupational asbestos exposure in 1971, and brake work was specifically included in the agency's asbestos standards. However, enforcement in small independent shops was limited, and alternative methods for brake cleaning — wet methods, enclosed vacuums with HEPA filtration, or enclosures with negative-pressure ventilation — only became widespread after significant advocacy by safety researchers and asbestos litigation attorneys in the 1980s and 1990s.

Epidemiological research has consistently documented elevated rates of mesothelioma and asbestos-related lung disease among automotive mechanics. Studies have found that auto mechanics as an occupational group carry significantly higher mesothelioma incidence than the general population, with the risk concentrated in workers who performed brake service. Pathological analyses of mesothelioma tissue in mechanics have confirmed the presence of chrysotile asbestos fibers — the type used in Bendix brake linings — as the causative agent.

The latency period for mesothelioma — the interval between first asbestos exposure and disease diagnosis — is typically 20 to 50 years. This means that many mechanics who regularly serviced Bendix brakes during the 1960s and 1970s are only now receiving mesothelioma diagnoses. The long latency period also means that claims can remain legally viable even for exposures that occurred half a century ago, provided the claimant acts within the statute of limitations following diagnosis.

Family members of brake mechanics have also filed claims based on secondary or “take-home” exposure. A mechanic who came home with asbestos dust embedded in work clothing, hair, or boots could expose a spouse who laundered the clothing or children who had contact with the worker before showering. Courts have recognized take-home exposure as a legally compensable route of injury in multiple jurisdictions, and Honeywell has faced lawsuits from family members as well as directly exposed mechanics.

NARCO Trust vs. Bendix Litigation: Understanding the Difference

One of the most important and frequently misunderstood aspects of Honeywell asbestos liability is the distinction between two entirely separate legal mechanisms for compensating asbestos victims: the NARCO Asbestos Trust, which was established through a bankruptcy proceeding, and direct litigation against Honeywell for Bendix brake lining claims. Claimants and their attorneys must understand which mechanism applies to their specific exposure history, because the processes, timelines, and compensation structures are completely different.

The NARCO Asbestos Trust

North American Refractories Company (NARCO) was a subsidiary of Allied-Signal (later Honeywell) that manufactured and sold asbestos-containing refractory products — materials used to line industrial furnaces, kilns, boilers, and similar high-temperature equipment in the steel, aluminum, glass, and petrochemical industries. Workers who installed, maintained, or removed NARCO refractory products were exposed to asbestos fibers in an entirely different way than brake mechanics: through the handling of bricks, castable cement, and insulating materials that contained significant quantities of chrysotile and amosite asbestos.

NARCO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2002, overwhelmed by asbestos personal injury claims that threatened to exceed its assets. As part of the NARCO bankruptcy reorganization plan, Honeywell International agreed to fund a dedicated asbestos trust — the NARCO Asbestos Trust — to pay valid claims from workers and their survivors who were exposed to NARCO refractory products. The trust became operational following confirmation of the NARCO reorganization plan in 2013 after years of legal proceedings.

Claims against the NARCO Trust are processed under a Trust Distribution Procedures (TDP) document that specifies eligible disease categories, required medical and exposure documentation, and payment levels for each approved claim. The trust covers mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, and other asbestos-related diseases diagnosed in workers who can document exposure to NARCO refractory products. Because the trust pays claims on a scheduled basis rather than through individual negotiation, the process is typically faster — though payment percentages may be less than full value depending on the trust's overall funding status.

Bendix Brake Lining Claims: Active Litigation Against Honeywell

For workers exposed to Bendix brake linings — mechanics, technicians, fleet workers, and their family members — there is no equivalent trust fund. Honeywell International has not entered bankruptcy and has not established a Bendix-specific asbestos trust. Instead, all Bendix brake lining claims must be pursued through traditional litigation filed directly against Honeywell International in state or federal court.

This distinction has important practical consequences. In trust fund claims, the compensation process is administrative — claimants submit forms with medical records and exposure evidence, and the trust adjudicator evaluates the claim under the TDP. In direct litigation against Honeywell, the claimant or their estate files a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit, and the case proceeds through discovery, expert witness testimony, and ultimately either a negotiated settlement or trial. Honeywell employs a large asbestos litigation defense team and has successfully defended many cases, but it has also paid substantial settlements — particularly in cases where Bendix internal documents about corporate knowledge of asbestos hazards are introduced into evidence.

The statute of limitations for Bendix litigation typically runs from the date of mesothelioma or asbestos disease diagnosis — not the date of exposure. In most states, the filing window is one to three years from diagnosis, though the rules vary. Given the urgency of these deadlines, individuals recently diagnosed with mesothelioma who have a brake mechanic work history should consult an asbestos attorney as quickly as possible.

Can You Pursue Both?

Yes — in some cases a claimant may have exposure to both Bendix brake products and NARCO refractory products, particularly if they worked in environments where both types of asbestos products were present. An experienced asbestos attorney will conduct a full exposure history intake to identify all potentially liable defendants and all available trust funds. Honeywell Bendix litigation and the NARCO Trust are entirely independent processes and one does not preclude the other. An attorney can simultaneously prepare a lawsuit against Honeywell for Bendix exposure while filing a NARCO Trust claim for refractory exposure — maximizing total recovery for the claimant and their family.

Frequently Asked Questions