John Crane Inc.: Asbestos History, Products & Litigation

John Crane: Global Leader in Mechanical Seals and the Asbestos Problem

John Crane Inc. is one of the world's leading manufacturers of mechanical seals, engineered sealing systems, and related products for rotating equipment. The company's history stretches back to the early twentieth century, and for most of that time its product catalog included numerous items incorporating asbestos as a primary raw material. From the 1930s through the 1980s, John Crane asbestos packing and gaskets were installed in refineries, chemical plants, paper mills, power generating stations, and shipyards throughout the United States and internationally.

John Crane's principal U.S. operations are centered in Morton Grove, Illinois, where the company maintains its headquarters and engineering functions. The company also operated manufacturing facilities in multiple other states and maintained a network of distribution centers that supplied asbestos-containing products to industrial customers nationwide. The geographic reach of John Crane product distribution means that potential claimants worked with John Crane products across an exceptionally wide range of industries and locations.

The core of John Crane's asbestos liability lies in its compression packing products. Compression packing — braided or twisted rope-like material wound into rings and pressed into the stuffing boxes of pumps, mixers, and agitators — was one of the primary methods for sealing rotating shafts in industrial equipment before modern mechanical face seals became dominant. For most of the mid-twentieth century, the highest performing grades of compression packing were made with asbestos fibers because asbestos could withstand the heat and chemical exposure generated by rotating shafts in aggressive service conditions.

In addition to compression packing, John Crane manufactured and sold compressed asbestos fiber sheet gasket material, asbestos rope packing for boiler and furnace applications, and certain mechanical seal components that incorporated asbestos in secondary sealing elements. Each of these product categories created distinct exposure pathways for workers who handled, cut, installed, or removed the products during their working careers.

What makes John Crane particularly significant in the asbestos litigation landscape is the combination of the products' wide distribution, the company's sophisticated understanding of industrial hazards, and its status as a defendant in the civil tort system rather than a trust fund administrator. Unlike Garlock, which established a bankruptcy trust that caps recoveries at scheduled amounts, John Crane cases can result in full jury verdicts — including awards of punitive damages when a jury finds the company acted with conscious disregard for worker safety.

John Crane has also operated under the name John Crane-Houdaille at various points in its corporate history, reflecting earlier mergers and acquisitions. The Houdaille Industries connection brought additional manufacturing operations and customer relationships into the John Crane corporate family. For purposes of asbestos litigation, the John Crane name encompasses these historical business combinations and the asbestos products marketed under their various identities.

Exposure Routes: Industrial Workers Most Affected

Asbestos exposure from John Crane products occurred through several distinct mechanisms, each associated with specific job tasks that were performed repetitively over the course of entire careers. Understanding the exposure pathway is critical to building a legal claim, because it establishes not just that the claimant was present near asbestos but that they personally disturbed and inhaled fibers from identified John Crane products.

Pump Packing Replacement

The most common exposure pathway involved replacement of compression packing in pump stuffing boxes. Centrifugal pumps used in refineries, chemical plants, power plants, and paper mills move large volumes of hot, pressurized fluid. The rotating shaft that drives the pump impeller must pass through the pump casing, and a stuffing box filled with compression packing creates a seal around the shaft. Over time, packing wears and must be replaced — a task that was routinely performed by pipefitters, millwrights, and pump mechanics on monthly or quarterly cycles.

The replacement process required the worker to bore out the old packing using a hook pick and a packing puller, often scraping compacted, friable asbestos material from the stuffing box bore. The new packing — cut from a spool of braided John Crane material — was then measured, cut to length with a diagonal cut, and pressed into the stuffing box. Both the removal of old packing and the cutting of new rings released visible asbestos dust. Industrial hygiene studies conducted in facilities using asbestos packing documented fiber concentrations well above the exposure levels subsequently established as dangerous.

Valve Packing Maintenance

Gate valves, globe valves, and other industrial valve types use packing material around the valve stem to prevent process fluid from escaping along the stem when the valve is operated. John Crane braided and die-formed valve packing was widely used in these applications. Maintenance mechanics who repacked valve glands — either at an installed location or on a valve bench — encountered the same cutting and removal tasks as pump mechanics, generating asbestos dust in the immediate work area.

Pipefitters and Gasket Work

John Crane sheet gasket material required cutting to match the specific flange dimensions of each connection being sealed. Gasket cutters, knife cuts, and die presses were used to shape the compressed asbestos fiber sheet, releasing fine asbestos fibers with each cut. A pipefitter installing or replacing gaskets on a large process unit during a scheduled maintenance turnaround might cut dozens of gaskets in a single shift, sustaining repeated, concentrated exposures over the course of a multi-week turnaround event.

Chemical Plant and Refinery Workers

The chemical processing and petroleum refining industries were among the highest-volume consumers of John Crane products. The combination of corrosive chemicals, elevated temperatures, and the need for reliable shaft sealing made asbestos packing the material of choice for most of the twentieth century. Process operators, unit maintenance crews, and contract maintenance workers in these industries encountered John Crane products throughout their working environments.

Shipyard and Marine Applications

John Crane mechanical seals and packing were used extensively in shipboard systems, including main propulsion machinery, auxiliary steam systems, cargo pump systems, and fuel oil service equipment. Navy shipyard workers and commercial marine mechanics who maintained these systems aboard vessels or in repair facilities were exposed to John Crane asbestos products. The confined, poorly ventilated spaces characteristic of ship machinery spaces elevated exposure concentrations beyond what would occur in an open industrial setting.

Smiths Group Acquisition and Ongoing Asbestos Liability

John Crane Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Smiths Group plc, a diversified British engineering company headquartered in London. Smiths Group acquired John Crane as part of its engineering products portfolio and has since managed John Crane as one of its major operating divisions alongside medical devices, detection technology, and other industrial businesses.

The significance of the Smiths Group ownership for asbestos claimants lies primarily in the financial backing it provides. Unlike many asbestos defendants that sought bankruptcy protection when litigation costs became unmanageable, John Crane has remained a solvent operating entity. Smiths Group's financial resources and John Crane's own cash flow from ongoing operations mean that substantial verdicts and settlements can be satisfied without the claimant being forced to accept a discounted trust fund payment percentage.

Smiths Group has disclosed John Crane's asbestos litigation exposure in its annual reports and financial statements for many years, treating it as a known and managed contingent liability. The company has set reserves against expected asbestos liabilities and has historically resolved cases through settlement or trial without seeking the protection of the federal bankruptcy court system.

The litigation posture of John Crane — defending cases actively in the civil court system while remaining solvent — means that claimants pursuing John Crane cases must be prepared for more vigorous defense than they might encounter with a trust fund claim. John Crane has retained experienced asbestos defense counsel and has litigated cases across multiple jurisdictions, contesting causation, the adequacy of exposure evidence, and the medical evidence linking a claimant's disease to asbestos rather than other potential causes such as smoking history.

Despite this active defense posture, there have been significant plaintiff verdicts in John Crane cases, some including punitive damages components. Courts have admitted internal John Crane documents in various cases that plaintiff attorneys have argued demonstrate the company's awareness of asbestos health hazards predating its public warnings, which has proved relevant to jury deliberations on the question of corporate knowledge and conduct.

What John Crane Knew About Asbestos Hazards

A recurring theme in John Crane asbestos litigation has been the question of when the company first became aware of the health hazards associated with asbestos exposure, and what steps it took — or failed to take — to warn its customers and the downstream workers who handled its products.

The scientific literature documenting asbestosis, mesothelioma, and lung cancer as consequences of asbestos exposure was well established by the 1940s and 1950s. Industrial hygiene organizations, government agencies, and medical researchers published findings throughout this period that were widely circulated within the industries that used asbestos. Companies with the technical sophistication of John Crane, operating in the same industrial sectors where these publications were most closely read, would have had ready access to this body of knowledge.

In litigation, plaintiff attorneys have introduced internal John Crane documents including correspondence, product safety evaluations, and meeting minutes. These documents have been analyzed in multiple courts and have contributed to findings, in some cases, that John Crane possessed knowledge of asbestos health risks significantly before it placed adequate warnings on its products or communicated dangers to its industrial customers.

The argument that a company's superior knowledge of a product's hazard, combined with a failure to warn foreseeable users, supports both compensatory damages for actual injury and punitive damages for reckless disregard of safety has been advanced successfully in a number of John Crane cases. The availability of punitive damages — which are not available through trust fund claims — is one of the factors that makes direct litigation against John Crane potentially more valuable to claimants than pursuing only trust fund recoveries against bankrupt defendants.

It is important to note that John Crane disputes many of these characterizations and defends its conduct and products vigorously in litigation. The legal landscape in any individual case will depend on the specific facts of the claimant's exposure history, the jurisdiction where the case is filed, and the evidence available at trial. An experienced asbestos attorney can assess the strength of a potential John Crane claim based on the specific circumstances of each case.

John Crane Asbestos-Containing Products

The following table summarizes the principal categories of John Crane asbestos-containing products identified through litigation discovery, product safety data, and historical industrial records.

Frequently Asked Questions