John Crane Inc., the Chicago-based maker of industrial gaskets, packing, and seals, has been sued for asbestos exposure more than 325,000 times since 1980, and more than 20,000 of those cases were still active as of mid-2025.1Company litigation records cited in the research file John Crane asbestos lawsuits have to be filed and litigated one by one, because the company has never declared bankruptcy or set up a trust fund. That means anyone who develops mesothelioma, asbestosis, or lung cancer after working with the company’s products has to sue in civil court to recover anything.
What John Crane Made and When
From the 1930s through at least 1985, John Crane produced more than 200 products containing asbestos, including both white chrysotile and blue crocidolite fibers. Roughly 40 of those products contained crocidolite, the more dangerous amphibole variety. During a 2001 trial, a company representative admitted that 13 styles of gaskets manufactured between 1962 and 1982 contained asbestos, some composed of up to 80% asbestos by weight.
The asbestos-containing line included gaskets, mechanical seals, hydraulic packing, rope packing, ring packing, braided and molded Chemlon packing, and commercial-grade asbestos yarn. These were treated as industry-standard components in heavy industry, so the same items turned up on Navy ships, in refineries, in power plants, and on factory floors for decades.
Who Was Exposed
Exposure typically happened during installation and removal. Replacing old gaskets and packing required scraping, wire brushing, and hammering, all of which released asbestos fibers into the air. Once inhaled, those fibers could cause mesothelioma, asbestosis, or lung cancer decades later.
The occupations that show up most often in John Crane cases include:
- Navy personnel and shipyard workers — laborers, pipefitters, shipfitters, and boiler workers who installed and replaced packing and gaskets in engine rooms and other confined spaces
- Refinery, chemical plant, paper mill, mining, and power plant workers who serviced pumps, valves, and rotating equipment
- Auto assembly line workers and mechanics who handled John Crane mechanical seals, often in poorly ventilated garages
- Millwrights, pipefitters, and maintenance mechanics across general industry
Ford and Chevrolet were using Crane Packing seals as factory-standard components as early as 1928, Chrysler adopted the mechanical seals on water pumps in 1938, and the U.S. Navy has been a customer since the 1920s.
How to Bring a Claim
Because there is no John Crane asbestos trust, there is no administrative claim form, no expedited payout schedule, and no set matrix of values. Every claim is a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit filed in state or federal court. Statutes of limitations vary by state but generally run two to three years from the date of diagnosis or, in wrongful death cases, from the date of death.
John Crane’s parent, Smiths Group plc, manages the litigation at the corporate level. Given the company’s practice of contesting cases rather than settling, plaintiffs generally need lawyers experienced in asbestos work to develop the product identification, work history, and expert testimony required to get to a jury.
How John Crane Fights These Cases
John Crane has a well-documented reputation for taking asbestos cases to trial. A few recurring defenses show up across the docket.
The Chrysotile Defense
The company argues that chrysotile asbestos, the type in most of its products, is far less dangerous than amphibole varieties like crocidolite and amosite, and that exposure at the levels released by its gaskets and packing wasn’t enough to cause mesothelioma. In Bartel v. John Crane, Inc. (N.D. Ohio 2004), a federal court accepted this reasoning, finding the plaintiff had failed to prove John Crane products released fibers above background levels and citing defense studies that the gaskets and packing remained “at least partially, if not completely, encapsulated” during normal use.
The argument has limits. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies all forms of asbestos as carcinogenic to humans, and a 2023 article in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine called the chrysotile defense an “example of manipulation of information to cast uncertainty and doubt.”
The Government Contractor Defense
In Navy cases, John Crane argues that it made the products to government-approved specifications and therefore shares the government’s immunity. In Lisa Castillo, et al. v. John Crane Inc., et al. (San Francisco Superior Court, March 2024), a jury accepted the defense and returned a verdict for the company, finding that the Navy had contracted for asbestos-containing packing under “reasonably precise specifications” and that John Crane’s failure to warn was not a substantial factor in the plaintiff’s mesothelioma.
Other courts have looked at the defense more skeptically. In Mullinex v. John Crane, Inc. (E.D. Va. 2022), the court ruled that John Crane couldn’t satisfy the defense just by pointing to the Navy’s “general knowledge” of asbestos hazards; it had to link that knowledge specifically to its own products.
Causation Challenges
John Crane routinely disputes whether its products, in particular, caused a plaintiff’s illness, given that most workers were exposed to asbestos from multiple manufacturers over a career. In Daniels v. John Crane, Inc. (Ill. App. 1st Dist. 2019), the company argued the plaintiff’s expert relied on an inadmissible “any exposure” theory. The Illinois appellate court disagreed, pointing to specific evidence of the decedent’s exposure to John Crane products between 1957 and 1985 at fiber levels of 0.05 to 2 fibers per cubic centimeter, and upheld a $4.8 million verdict after setoffs for settled defendants.
Destroyed Records
A Chatham County, Georgia court found that John Crane’s destruction of sales records covering 1970 to 1977 was done “in bad faith.” That kind of finding can support sanctions or adverse inferences in later cases where product identification depends on the same records.
Notable Verdicts
Large jury awards over the past several years give a sense of what these cases have been worth when they reach a verdict:
- $40.75 million (August 2023): A Cook County, Illinois jury awarded this amount to the family of Bruce Torgerson, a pump operator who developed malignant pleural mesothelioma after working with John Crane gaskets and packing, in Annette Beneville v. John Crane Inc.
- $34.2 million (September 2025): A Portland, Oregon jury found John Crane liable in Richard D. Long v. 3M Company et al. Long, a former Dillingham ship repair yard laborer from 1972 to 1985, was diagnosed with biphasic pleural mesothelioma in 2023. The verdict came after a retrial following a mistrial earlier that summer.
- $25 million (December 2022): A Philadelphia jury returned a verdict for Richard and Winifred Daciw. Mr. Daciw served as a Navy fireman and shipfitter from 1965 to 1969 and later worked as a pipefitter and maintenance mechanic through the late 1980s, encountering John Crane products throughout.
- $4.8 million (affirmed 2019): The Illinois appellate court upheld this amount in Daniels v. John Crane, Inc. for the estate of Patrick O’Reilly, after the original $6 million award was reduced for co-defendant settlements.
- $3.45 million (September 2024): A Virginia jury awarded damages in a wrongful death case brought by Patricia Katcham after her husband James, a millwright, died from an asbestos-related illness.
- $2.78 million (2002): In Wilson v. John Crane, Inc., a Baltimore City jury found John Crane and co-defendants jointly liable, and the Maryland Court of Appeals ultimately upheld the trial court’s judgment against John Crane.
Across 45 years of litigation, juries have ordered John Crane to pay approximately $190 million, with courts ruling against the company for nearly $100 million between 2020 and 2025 alone.
Where Things Stand Now
The docket is still moving. In January 2024, a federal judge in Illinois denied summary judgment in Pelton v. John Crane, Inc., letting the case of Chloyde Pelton, a former Navy pipefitter who estimated he had installed or removed John Crane gaskets and packing “hundreds of times” during his service from 1959 to 1963, proceed to trial. The court found that circumstantial evidence combined with expert testimony on general causation and industrial hygiene was enough for a jury to decide whether John Crane products were a “substantial factor” in causing his mesothelioma.
That ruling is a reasonable snapshot of where these cases stand: John Crane will argue chrysotile science, government specifications, and causation; plaintiffs who can put together specific product identification, work history, and qualified experts continue to get to juries, and juries continue to return substantial verdicts.