A.O. Smith Asbestos Exposure and Mesothelioma Claims

By David Meldofsky, California-licensed attorney · Founder, Lawsuit Informer

Last updated: August 17, 2026

A.O. Smith Corporation has built boilers, water heating equipment, electric motors, and automotive frames from Milwaukee since the early twentieth century. It is still a publicly traded manufacturer and there is no A.O. Smith asbestos trust. Searching the company name returns page after page of court decisions, which creates a misleading impression worth correcting before anything else.

Most of those decisions are not about A.O. Smith. They carry its name because of how asbestos case captions are built. Understanding that distinction is the difference between reading the litigation record accurately and drawing the wrong conclusion from a list of search results, and it matters to anyone trying to work out whether they have a claim involving this company's equipment.

Why A.O. Smith's Name Heads So Many Asbestos Decisions

An asbestos complaint in New York routinely names dozens of defendants: equipment makers, insulation manufacturers, distributors, contractors, and premises owners. The case caption takes the first defendant on that list, and the list is ordered alphabetically. A.O. Smith Water Products Co. sits at or near the front of the alphabet among asbestos defendants, so its name ends up on the front of a large number of decisions in the New York City Asbestos Litigation docket.

The published record makes the point on its own. Decisions captioned Ford v A.O. Smith Water Products and Sparacino v A.O. Smith Water Products address boilers manufactured by Burnham. Brigantino v A.O. Smith Water Products resolves a summary judgment motion brought by the industrial supplier W.W. Grainger. In each, the company named in the caption was not the company litigating the motion.

Two consequences follow. If you are researching your own potential claim, the volume of results tells you nothing about whether A.O. Smith equipment was involved in your work history. And if you are evaluating a decision that appears to be about this company, the first step is to read past the caption to the defendant whose conduct the court actually addressed.

Company Background

The business began in Milwaukee in 1874 as C.J. Smith and Sons, a maker of baby carriage and bicycle parts. Arthur Oliver Smith developed a pressed steel vehicle frame at the end of the 1890s, and the company incorporated as A.O. Smith Corporation in 1904, supplying automotive frames to Peerless, Cadillac, and Ford. Frames remained the industrial core of the Milwaukee operation for most of the twentieth century.

The product line that matters most to asbestos claims came later. A.O. Smith patented a glass-lined water heater in the mid-1930s and moved into mass production before the Second World War. It acquired the Burkay Company of Toledo, Ohio in 1948, adding copper-tube boilers and commercial water heating equipment. The company also ran a substantial electric motor division, along with glass-lined tanks, fiberglass pipe, and storage systems.

Most of the diversified businesses were divested in the closing decades of the century, and the electric motor division was sold in 2011. A.O. Smith Corporation trades today on the New York Stock Exchange and remains headquartered in Milwaukee, which is the reason claims involving its historic equipment proceed against a solvent operating company rather than a trust.

How Asbestos Exposure Happened Around A.O. Smith Equipment

Boilers and commercial water heating equipment account for most of the product claims, and the pathways are the ones common to fired equipment:

Refractory and internal components. Combustion chambers and fireboxes were lined with refractory material, and asbestos appeared in the panels, boards, and cements used to build and repair those linings. Tearing out and rebuilding a firebox is dusty work performed in a confined space.

Door, access, and header gaskets. Inspection doors, burner mounts, and header plates were sealed with gasket material and rope. Every service call that opened the unit meant scraping the old seal and cutting a new one.

External insulation applied in the field. Boilers and the piping around them were lagged with asbestos insulation supplied and installed by other companies. That work sits at the center of the legal question addressed below, and it is covered generally on our page about asbestos exposure from pipe insulation and boilers.

Electric motors. Motor claims generally involve insulating materials used in windings, leads, and related components, and the maintenance work that disturbed them.

The company has litigated the boundary of its responsibility. In a Connecticut case brought over an A.O. Smith boiler, the defense put forward testimony that asbestos in the boilers was located in internal, self-contained parts rather than on external surfaces. Whether a given claimant's work reached those components, and whether the equipment was designed to be used with asbestos supplied by others, are exactly the questions these cases are fought over.

The Third-Party Component Question

A recurring defense in boiler cases is that the manufacturer did not make the asbestos. The insulation was someone else's product, applied by an insulation contractor, sometimes decades after the boiler was installed.

New York's highest court addressed that argument in 2016 in the Dummitt decision, part of the New York City Asbestos Litigation. The rule it set is that a manufacturer can owe a duty to warn about the danger arising from the known and reasonably foreseeable use of its product in combination with a third-party product, where that third-party product is necessary as a matter of design, mechanics, or economic necessity to enable the manufacturer's product to function as intended. Appellate decisions applying that standard have pointed to evidence that a boiler maker promoted asbestos insulation for use with its equipment, sold asbestos products alongside the boilers, and knew of the hazard before the plaintiff's exposure.

The Supreme Court reached a comparable result for maritime claims in 2019, in a case that arose from Navy pump equipment and is discussed on our page covering Buffalo Pumps asbestos claims. The practical point for a claimant is the same in both settings. The fact that the asbestos carried another company's name does not automatically remove the equipment manufacturer from the case.

The Milwaukee Works and Plant-Worker Claims

A second category of claim comes from people who worked inside A.O. Smith facilities rather than on its products. The Milwaukee complex was one of the largest industrial employers in the city for generations, and frame production involved forging, welding, heat treating, and furnace work. Asbestos-containing insulation, refractory, protective cloth, and gloves were ordinary equipment in that environment, and the pipe and steam systems running through the plant were insulated like any other industrial facility of the era.

Plant claims are proved differently from product claims. The exposure is anchored to a single employer and a single address, which usually makes the narrative simpler, while raising separate questions about which theories of liability are available against an employer and which defendants supplied the materials used in the plant. Our guide to asbestos exposure in industrial insulation work covers the material side of that picture.

Jobs and Sites Often Involved

• Boilermakers and boiler mechanics who rebuilt fireboxes and replaced refractory, covered in asbestos exposure among boilermakers
• Steamfitters, pipefitters, and plumbers who serviced boilers and water heating systems
• Stationary and building engineers in schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, and institutions
• HVAC service technicians working on commercial water heating equipment
• Electricians and motor repair workers
• Foundry, forge, welding, and maintenance workers at A.O. Smith plants
• Power plant and industrial maintenance crews, covered in asbestos exposure in power plants and refineries

There Is No A.O. Smith Asbestos Trust

A.O. Smith did not reorganize in bankruptcy over its asbestos liabilities. That puts it in the same category as Goulds Pumps, Crane Co., Jenkins Bros., and Buffalo Forge: solvent companies, or solvent successors, litigated in tort rather than paid administratively through a trust.

The consequences are the ones that follow across that group. The governing deadline is the statute of limitations in the state where suit is brought rather than a trust filing rule. The case involves discovery, depositions, and expert proof. And the tort case usually sits alongside trust claims against bankrupt insulation and refractory manufacturers whose products were used on the same equipment, which our guide to asbestos trust funds and claims explains. In boiler cases in particular, the insulation that produced the exposure was frequently made by a company that is now behind a trust, so the two tracks run together more often than not.

Illnesses Discussed in These Cases

• Pleural mesothelioma, the cancer of the lining of the lung most closely associated with asbestos exposure
• Peritoneal mesothelioma, which arises in the lining of the abdomen
• Asbestos-related lung cancer, frequently litigated and frequently contested on causation where there is a smoking history
• Asbestosis and pleural disease, which are scarring conditions rather than cancers

Latency is why these claims arrive so long after the work. Decades commonly separate exposure from diagnosis, which is why a case filed today can rest on a boiler room in the 1960s.

Records That Help Support an A.O. Smith Claim

• Social Security earnings statements, which establish employer names and date ranges when nothing else survives
• Employment and personnel records, including records from A.O. Smith plants for premises claims
• Union records for boilermaker, steamfitter, plumber, and electrical locals
• Boiler room equipment inventories, building mechanical specifications, and purchase orders naming manufacturers
• Service and maintenance logs from buildings, schools, hospitals, and plants
• Boiler inspection certificates, which are filed with state or municipal agencies and often name the manufacturer
• Co-worker names and contact information
• Medical records establishing the diagnosis, including pathology

Our guide to asbestos records that help support a claim covers how to request each of these, including the ones held by agencies rather than employers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does A.O. Smith appear in the name of so many asbestos cases?

Largely because of how case captions are ordered. In the New York City Asbestos Litigation docket, a complaint may name dozens of defendants, and the caption takes the first one listed. A.O. Smith Water Products Co. sits at the front of an alphabetical list, so decisions captioned against it frequently resolve motions brought by an entirely different company. Reading a decision means checking which defendant it actually concerns, not just the case name.

Is there an A.O. Smith asbestos trust fund?

No. A.O. Smith Corporation did not reorganize in bankruptcy over asbestos and has no section 524(g) trust. It remains a publicly traded manufacturer. Claims involving its equipment are brought as lawsuits and resolved through settlement or verdict rather than through a trust claim form.

Which A.O. Smith products are involved in asbestos claims?

Most commonly commercial and residential boilers and water heating equipment, where asbestos appeared in refractory material, door and access gaskets, rope seals, and other internal components, and where external insulation was applied to the equipment in the field. Electric motors and the company's industrial plants also appear in claims.

A.O. Smith says the asbestos was inside sealed parts. Does that end the case?

No, though the company has raised that position in litigation, supported by testimony that asbestos in its boilers was located in internal, self-contained parts rather than on external surfaces. New York law addresses the related question directly: a manufacturer can owe a duty to warn about a third-party asbestos product used with its equipment where that combination is necessary as a matter of design, mechanics, or economic necessity. Whether that applies is a fact question, not an automatic defense.

Can plant workers at A.O. Smith facilities bring claims?

Yes, and they are a separate category from product users. The Milwaukee works and other A.O. Smith plants involved foundry, forging, welding, and heat treating operations, and asbestos-containing insulation and refractory were common in that environment. A plant claim is anchored to one employer and one site, which usually simplifies the exposure narrative but raises different questions about which theories of liability remain available.

Can I still bring a claim if the exposure happened decades ago?

Often yes. In most states the filing clock for an asbestos claim runs from diagnosis rather than from the date of exposure, because mesothelioma and other asbestos diseases take decades to appear. The exact deadline depends on the state, the disease, and whether the claim is brought by the injured person or by surviving family.

What if I worked around A.O. Smith equipment and other brands too?

That is the normal pattern rather than a problem. Boiler rooms contained equipment from several manufacturers and insulation from several more. Asbestos cases routinely name many defendants, and some of those companies are bankrupt with trusts that pay separately from the lawsuit.

Can family members bring a claim after a loved one has died?

Often yes. Wrongful death claims can be brought by the estate or surviving family members, and filing deadlines for those claims generally run from the date of death rather than the date of diagnosis. The rules vary by state, which is one reason timing matters in these cases.

Related Asbestos Guides

About the Author

David Meldofsky is a California-licensed attorney and the founder of Lawsuit Informer, an educational platform focused on helping people understand lawsuits, consumer safety issues, and legal rights related to defective products and toxic exposures.

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Last Updated: August 17, 2026

Educational information only. Not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is formed.