| Contingencies | 10 . Contingencies
Asbestos
From 1948 to 1958, one of the Company's former business units commercially produced and sold approximately $40 million of a high-temperature, calcium-silicate based pipe and block insulation material containing asbestos. The Company sold its insulation business unit in April 1958. The Company receives claims from individuals alleging bodily injury and death as a result of exposure to asbestos from this product (“Asbestos Claims”). Some Asbestos Claims are brought as personal injury lawsuits that typically allege various theories of liability, including negligence, gross negligence and strict liability and seek compensatory and, in some cases, punitive damages.
Predominantly, however, Asbestos Claims are presented to the Company under administrative claims-handling agreements, which the Company has in place with many plaintiffs’ counsel throughout the country (“Administrative Claims”). Administrative Claims require evaluation and negotiation regarding whether particular claimants qualify under the criteria established by the related claims-handling agreements. The criteria for Administrative Claims include verification of a compensable illness and a reasonable probability of exposure to a product manufactured by the Company's former business unit during its manufacturing period ending in 1958. Plaintiffs’ counsel present, and the Company negotiates, Administrative Claims under these various agreements in differing quantities, at different times, and under a variety of conditions.
As of March 31, 2019, the Company had approximately 1,070 asbestos lawsuits pending. These pending lawsuits do not include an estimate of potential Administrative Claims that may be presented under a claims-handling agreement due to the uncertainties around presentation timing, quantities, or qualification rates. The Company considers Administrative Claims to be filed and disposed when they are accepted for payment.
The lack of uniform rules in lawsuit pleading practice, technical pleading requirements in some jurisdictions, local rules, and other factors cause considerable variation in the specific amounts of monetary damages asserted. In the Company’s experience, the monetary relief alleged in a lawsuit bears little relationship to an Asbestos Claim’s merits or its disposition value. Rather, several variables, including but not limited to, the type and severity of the asbestos disease, medical history, and exposure to other disease-causing agents; the product identification evidence against the Company and other co-defendants; the defenses available to the Company and other co-defendants; the specific jurisdiction in which the claim is made; the applicable law; and the law firm representing the claimant, affect the value.
The Company has also been a defendant in other Asbestos Claims involving maritime workers, medical monitoring, co-defendants’ third-party actions, and property damage allegations. Based upon its experience, the Company believes that these categories of Asbestos Claims will not involve any material liability. Therefore, they are not included in the description of pending or disposed matters.
Since receiving its first Asbestos Claim, as of March 31, 2019, the Company in the aggregate has disposed of approximately 400,600 Asbestos Claims at an average indemnity payment of approximately $10,000 per claim. The Company’s asbestos indemnity payments have varied on a per-claim basis and are expected to continue to vary considerably over time. Asbestos-related cash payments for 2018, 2017, and 2016 were $105 million, $110 million, and $125 million, respectively. The Company’s cash payments per claim disposed (inclusive of legal costs) were approximately $86,000, $83,000 and $71,000 for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017, and 2016, respectively.
The Company’s objective is to achieve, where possible, resolution of Asbestos Claims pursuant to claims-handling agreements. Failure of claimants to meet certain medical and product exposure criteria in claims-handling agreements generally has reduced the number of claims that would otherwise have been received by the Company in the tort system. In addition, changes in jurisdictional dynamics, legislative acts, asbestos docket management and procedures, the substantive law, the co-defendant pool, and other external factors have affected lawsuit volume, claim volume, qualification rates, claim values, and related matters. Collectively, these variables generally have had the effect of increasing the Company’s per-claim average indemnity payment over time.
Beginning with the initial liability of $975 million established in 1993, the Company has accrued a total of approximately $5.0 billion through March 31, 2019, before insurance recoveries, for its asbestos-related liability. The Company’s estimates of its liability have been significantly affected by, among other factors, the volatility of asbestos-related litigation in the United States, the significant number of co-defendants that have filed for bankruptcy, changes in mortality rates, the inherent uncertainty of future disease incidence and claiming patterns against the Company, the significant expansion of the types of defendants that are now sued in this litigation, and the continuing changes in the extent to which these defendants participate in the resolution of cases in which the Company is also a defendant.
The Company continues to monitor trends that may affect its ultimate liability and analyze the developments and variables likely to affect the resolution of Asbestos Claims against the Company. The material components of the Company’s total accrued liability are determined by the Company in connection with its annual comprehensive legal review and consist of the following estimates, to the extent it is probable that such liabilities have been incurred and can be reasonably estimated: (i) the liability for Asbestos Claims already asserted against the Company; (ii) the liability for Asbestos Claims not yet asserted against the Company; and (iii) the legal defense costs estimated to be incurred in connection with the Asbestos Claims already asserted and those Asbestos Claims the Company believes will be asserted.
The Company conducts an annual comprehensive legal review of its asbestos-related liabilities and costs in connection with finalizing and reporting its annual results of operations, unless significant changes in trends or new developments warrant an earlier review. As part of its annual comprehensive legal review, the Company provides historical Asbestos Claims’ data to a third party with expertise in determining the impact of disease incidence and mortality on future filing trends to develop information to assist the Company in estimating the total number of future Asbestos Claims likely to be asserted against the Company. The Company uses this estimate, along with an estimation of disposition costs and related legal costs, as inputs to develop its best estimate of its total probable liability. If the results of the annual comprehensive legal review indicate that the existing amount of the accrued liability is lower (higher) than its reasonably estimable asbestos-related costs, then the Company will record an appropriate charge (credit) to the Company’s results of operations to increase (decrease) the accrued liability.
The significant assumptions underlying the material components of the Company’s accrual are:
a) settlements will continue to be limited almost exclusively to claimants who were exposed to the Company’s asbestos containing insulation prior to its exit from that business in 1958;
b) Asbestos Claims will continue to be resolved primarily under the Company’s administrative claims-handling agreements or on terms comparable to those set forth in those agreements;
c) the incidence of serious asbestos-related disease cases and claiming patterns against the Company for such cases do not change materially;
d) the Company is substantially able to defend itself successfully at trial and on appeal;
e) the number and timing of additional co-defendant bankruptcies do not change significantly the assets available to participate in the resolution of cases in which the Company is a defendant; and
f) co-defendants with substantial resources and assets continue to participate significantly in the resolution of future Asbestos Claims.
For the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017, the Company concluded that accruals in the amounts of $602 million and $582 million, respectively, were required. These amounts have not been discounted for the time value of money. The Company’s comprehensive legal reviews resulted in charges of $125 million, $0 million and $0 million for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016, respectively. As previously disclosed, the Company anticipated that adjustments to its asbestos-related accruals were possible given the inherent uncertainties involved in asbestos litigation. In the fourth quarter of 2018, the Company determined that it was advantageous to accelerate the disposition of certain claims in light of additional information the Company obtained about higher estimated future claim volumes and values in certain of the affected discrete streams of potential liability. Factors impacting the increased likelihood of these additional losses included changes in the law, procedure, the expansion of judicial resources in certain jurisdictions, and renewed attention to dockets of non-mesothelioma cases. The Company also obtained new information about other Asbestos Claims, which had the effect of reducing its asbestos-related liability. The combined effect of these items resulted in a change in estimate of the Company’s asbestos-related liability.
The Company believes that it is reasonably possible that it will incur a loss for its asbestos-related liabilities in excess of the amount currently recognized, which was $602 million as of December 31, 2018. The Company estimated that reasonably possible losses could result in asbestos-related liabilities of approximately $722 million. This estimate of additional reasonably possible loss reflects a qualitative judgment regarding the nature of contingencies that could impact future Asbestos Claims and legal costs, which include, but are not limited to, successful attempts by plaintiffs to challenge existing legal barriers to entry, enact plaintiff-oriented procedural rules or liability or damage-related legislation, establish new theories of liability, revive long-dormant inventories of non-mesothelioma cases, or leverage changing jurisdictional dynamics and a changing litigation environment to increase the volume of Asbestos Claims presented or per-claim indemnity values. However, it is also possible that the ultimate amount of asbestos-related liabilities could be above this estimate.
The Company expects a significant majority of the total number of Asbestos Claims to be received in the next five to seven years. This timeframe appropriately reflects the mortality of current and expected claimants in light of the Company’s sale of its insulation business unit in 1958. The Company may continue to experience increased year-over-year variability with regard to the annual quantity of Asbestos Claims presented to and disposed by the Company. This increased variability, jurisdictional dynamics, a changing litigation environment, the size of the remaining pool of claimants, and the expected increase in mortality over the next five to seven years may present the Company with further opportunities to accelerate disposition of discrete parts of its claimant pool. These influences may create increased variability in the annual cash payments year-over-year.
The Company’s asbestos-related liability is based on a projection of new Asbestos Claims that will eventually be filed against the Company and the estimated average disposition cost of these claims and related legal costs. Changes in these projections, and estimates, as well as changes in the significant assumptions noted above, have the potential to significantly impact the estimation of the Company’s asbestos-related liability.
Other Matters
Other litigation is pending against the Company, in many cases involving ordinary and routine claims incidental to the business of the Company and in others presenting allegations that are non-routine and involve compensatory, punitive or treble damage claims as well as other types of relief. The Company records a liability for such matters when it is both probable that the liability has been incurred and the amount of the liability can be reasonably estimated. Recorded amounts are reviewed and adjusted to reflect changes in the factors upon which the estimates are based, including additional information, negotiations, settlements and other events. |
