Contingencies | 14. 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 has historically received claims from individuals alleging bodily injury and death as a result of exposure to asbestos from this product (“Asbestos Claims”). Some Asbestos Claims have been 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 have been 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 have presented, and the Company has negotiated, Administrative Claims under these various agreements in differing quantities, at different times, and under a variety of conditions. The following table shows the approximate number of plaintiffs who had asbestos lawsuits pending against the Company at the beginning of each listed year, the number of Asbestos Claims administratively presented or filed in the tort system, the number of Asbestos Claims disposed of during that year, and the number of lawsuits pending at the end of each listed year (eliminating duplicate filings): 2019 2018 2017 Pending at beginning of year 1,070 1,330 1,400 Disposed 1,170 1,220 1,320 Filed 950 960 1,250 Pending at end of year 850 1,070 1,330 The pending lawsuit figures 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 requirement 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 December 31, 2019, the Company in the aggregate has disposed of approximately 401,200 Asbestos Claims at an average indemnity payment of approximately $10,200 per claim. During the three months ended December 31, 2019, the Company disposed of approximately 150 Asbestos Claims. 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 2019, 2018, and 2017 were $ million, respectively. The Company’s cash payments per claim disposed (inclusive of legal costs) were approximately $ Historically, the Company’s objective has been 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 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 has also been a defendant. The Company has continued to monitor trends that may affect its ultimate liability and analyze the developments and variables likely to affect the resolution of Asbestos Claims. 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 has historically conducted 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 have warranted an earlier review. As part of its annual comprehensive legal review, the Company has provided 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 has used 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 indicated that the existing amount of the accrued liability was lower (higher) than its reasonably estimable asbestos-related costs, then the Company has recorded 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 have historically been: 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, including claiming pattern changes driven by changes in the law, procedure, or expansion of judicial resources in jurisdictions where the Company settles Asbestos Claims; 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, 2019 and 2018, the Company concluded that accruals in the amounts of $486 million and $602 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 $ million for the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, 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 2019, this charge was primarily due to an increase in the estimated average disposition cost per claim (including related legal costs), driven primarily by plaintiffs leveraging a changing litigation environment, and an immaterial decrease in the estimated number of claims likely to be asserted against the Company in the future. 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’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. Following the Merger (undertaken as part of Corporate Modernization), the Company’s legacy asbestos-related liabilities and certain other liabilities remained within Paddock. On January 6, 2020, Paddock voluntarily filed for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware to equitably and finally resolve all of its current and future asbestos-related claims. As a result of the initiation of the Chapter 11 proceeding, Paddock now operates in the ordinary course under court protection from asbestos claims by operation of the automatic stay in Paddock’s Chapter 11 filing, which stays ongoing litigation and submission of claims against Paddock and defers the payment of Paddock’s outstanding obligations on account of settled or otherwise determined lawsuits and claims. The bankruptcy process is expected to provide a centralized forum to resolve presently pending and anticipated future lawsuits and claims associated with asbestos. For a discussion of the effects of the Corporate Modernization and Paddock’s Chapter 11 proceedings on the Company’s financial statements, see Item 1A, “Risk Factors – “Corporate Modernization,” and “Subsidiary Bankruptcy” and “Asbestos-Related Liability,” and Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations and Note 22. Other Matters Other litigation is pending against the Company, in some 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. |