Jenkins Bros. Valves Asbestos Exposure and Mesothelioma Claims

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

Last updated: October 6, 2026

Jenkins Bros. built bronze and iron valves for more than a century, and for most of that time the valves were sealed with asbestos packing and asbestos sheet gaskets. The company never reorganized in bankruptcy over asbestos and never created a trust. A Jenkins claim is an ordinary lawsuit against a solvent defendant, and New York juries have returned verdicts in several of them.

Jenkins valves were sold through supply houses for generations. They ended up almost anywhere steam or process fluid ran: powerhouses, refineries, ships, hospitals, and the mechanical rooms of large buildings. The people who serviced them, rather than the people who installed them once, carry most of the exposure history. Repacking a valve stem or replacing a bonnet or flange gasket meant cutting, scraping, and wire-brushing asbestos out of a fitting by hand. The work was often done in a cramped mechanical space.

Company Background

Jenkins Bros. dates to the 1860s. It built its reputation on the Jenkins disc, a replaceable disc that let a worn globe valve be repaired in place instead of thrown away. That single design decision shaped the exposure history of the company more than anything else it made. A valve built to be serviced is a valve that gets opened, and every time it was opened the packing and gaskets inside it had to come out.

The company manufactured bronze, iron, and cast steel gate, globe, angle, and check valves, along with valve packing, gaskets, and other mechanical rubber goods. Its principal manufacturing plant stood in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and its catalogs ran to hundreds of pages of valve figures sold under the Jenkins name through industrial supply distributors. The Bridgeport works operated through the mid-twentieth century and became a local landmark before the manufacturing base of the city contracted.

In the 2024 trial covered below, the plaintiff's lawyer told the jury that Jenkins had made valves and asbestos parts for more than a hundred years. The lawyer said the company bought tens of thousands of pounds of raw asbestos every year, and had reason to know of the danger by the 1930s. Those were arguments made at trial rather than findings by a court, and the company has denied liability throughout.

How Asbestos Exposure Happened Around Jenkins Valves

Four pathways account for most of the allegations, and they are worth separating because the proof differs for each.

Stem packing. The stuffing box around a valve stem was packed with braided asbestos rings compressed by a gland nut. Repacking meant digging the compressed rings out with a packing hook, then cutting fresh rings to length from coil stock and seating them. Both ends of that job generated dust in a worker's breathing zone.

Bonnet and body gaskets. A sheet gasket sealed the bonnet to the valve body. Removing one that had been under heat and pressure for years usually meant scraping and wire-brushing the flange face. The replacement was cut from asbestos sheet with a knife or a gasket punch.

Flange gaskets at the pipe connection. The gasket between a valve flange and the pipe flange it bolts to is a separate part from the valve. It is the exposure behind the largest reported verdict against the company. Fitters who broke flanges apart to pull a valve out of a line handled those gaskets constantly.

External insulation. Valve bodies on steam service were commonly covered with asbestos block, cloth pads, or removable covers fabricated by others. A fitter working on the valve had to strip that covering first. Because of that, insulation makers such as Johns-Manville routinely appear in the same case, either as defendants or sharing part of the blame.

Insulation raises a question that comes up often in equipment cases. Does a valve maker answer for asbestos parts another company supplied? The Supreme Court addressed that in 2019, in a maritime case over Navy pump equipment. It held that a maker may have a duty to warn when its product needs a dangerous part added and the maker knows the finished product is dangerous. Our page on Buffalo Pumps asbestos claims, where the case began, covers the reasoning.

The Bridgeport Plant and Plant-Worker Claims

Most Jenkins claims come from people who worked around the valves somewhere else. A separate group worked at Jenkins, inside the Bridgeport plant, where the valves were cast, machined, and assembled and where packing and rubber goods were produced. Their exposure looks different from a field maintenance worker's. They handled raw materials and worked in the foundry and on grinding. They also cut and fitted gasket and packing material while building valves rather than taking them apart.

The difference changes what has to be proved. A field maintenance worker generally needs to establish which manufacturers' equipment was present at a job site over a long career across many sites. A plant worker's exposure is tied to one address and one employer, which usually makes the story simpler. It also raises different questions, such as whether workers' compensation rules block a lawsuit and which claims are still available. Both routes can work, and each needs its own kind of proof.

Jobs and Sites Often Involved

The trades that turn up most often in Jenkins cases are the ones that opened valves for a living:

• Steamfitters and pipefitters, including union members who spent full careers on commercial and institutional systems
• Plumbers and building engineers responsible for mechanical rooms in large buildings
• Boilermakers and boiler tenders in utility and industrial plants
• Powerhouse operators, maintainers, and inspectors at electric generating stations
• Machinist's mates, boiler tenders, and shipyard workers on naval and commercial vessels
• Refinery, chemical plant, and paper mill maintenance crews
• Jenkins production workers at the Bridgeport plant

The site list follows the trades. Utility powerhouses appear repeatedly, and so do the mechanical systems of large New York City buildings. In the largest reported verdict against the company, the plaintiff described installing and removing Jenkins valves from 1960 to 1996. He worked in landmark buildings, power plants, and skyscrapers across the city. Related reading covers asbestos exposure among pipefitters and steamfitters, asbestos exposure in power plants and refineries, and asbestos exposure in shipyards and naval service.

Jenkins Bros. in Asbestos Litigation

Jenkins is a repeat defendant in New York City's asbestos court and in asbestos cases upstate. Three reported outcomes show how these cases actually run.

A $4.6 million verdict for a welder. A New York jury returned a verdict reported at $4.6 million for a welder with pleural mesothelioma. He had worked around Jenkins valves and their gaskets, packing, and insulation in the 1970s and 1980s. The work was building and rebuilding boiler rooms on ships in and around New York City. Trial counsel reported that the jury found the company's conduct reckless.

A $23 million verdict for a steamfitter, affirmed on appeal. A career steamfitter installed and removed flange gaskets, valve flange gaskets, and valves from 1960 to 1996. A jury awarded him $13 million for past pain and suffering and $10 million for future pain and suffering. It put 90 percent of the fault on Jenkins and 10 percent on Johns-Manville. Johns-Manville is the bankrupt insulation maker that supplied insulation used on Jenkins valves and raw fiber to the company.

Jenkins asked the court to overturn the verdict, order a new trial, or cut the award. The appeals court, the Appellate Division, First Department, upheld the verdict. It applied the test for proving enough exposure set by New York's highest court in Nemeth v. Brenntag North America. It pointed to the plaintiff's testimony about the specific tasks he did on Jenkins products. Three experts backed him: an industrial hygienist, an epidemiologist, and a thoracic surgeon.

A $7 million verdict involving a former employee. A separate New York verdict reported at $7 million arose from exposure alleged during employment at Jenkins itself, with the company held 50 percent liable. Verdict reports like this one are secondhand, so check the court record before relying on any figure.

Proving whose valve it was. A more recent decision matters more to most readers than any dollar figure. A utility inspector worked at Con Edison powerhouses from the 1970s to the 1990s and died of lung cancer. In the case brought for him, Jenkins asked the court to end the case before trial. It argued he had never named Jenkins as the maker of the valves he described.

The court refused. Jenkins offered no evidence that its valves were missing from the powerhouses where he worked. The plaintiff also produced earlier deposition testimony placing Jenkins valves there. New York appeals courts have made this clear. A company cannot win just because a worker who has died could not name a product, if other evidence puts the product at the site.

The practical translation: you are not disqualified because you cannot recall a brand name stamped on a valve body forty years ago.

Why There Is No Jenkins Bros. Asbestos Trust

Most of the household names in asbestos litigation, Johns-Manville, Owens Corning, Pittsburgh Corning, Garlock, reorganized in bankruptcy and funded trusts that pay claims administratively against a published schedule. Jenkins did not. It has been defended in tort, case by case, by outside counsel, and the recoveries described above came from settlements and verdicts rather than from a trust distribution.

Three consequences follow for anyone weighing a claim. First, the deadline is the statute of limitations in the state where the claim is brought, together with the scheduling order in the asbestos court where it is filed. No trust filing rule applies. Second, the case involves gathering evidence, depositions, and expert proof. It takes longer and asks more of the person and the family than a trust claim.

Third, a lawsuit and trust claims can go forward together. Insulation and gasket makers that are now bankrupt were usually at the same job sites. A typical work history supports trust claims alongside the lawsuit, which is what the 90-10 split of fault with Johns-Manville reflects. Our guide to asbestos trust funds and claims covers that side of the process.

Illnesses Discussed in These Cases

The diagnoses that appear in Jenkins litigation are the same ones that appear across asbestos equipment 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, which is frequently litigated and frequently contested on causation, particularly where there is a smoking history
• Asbestosis and pleural disease, which are scarring conditions rather than cancers

Latency is the reason these cases arrive so long after the work ended. Decades commonly pass between exposure and diagnosis, which is why a claim filed in the 2020s can rest on work performed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Records That Help Support a Jenkins Bros. Claim

Nobody needs a complete file to start. These are the records that tend to carry the most weight once a case is underway:

• Union records, including local membership and dispatch or referral history for steamfitter, plumber, and boilermaker locals
• Social Security earnings statements, which establish employer names and date ranges when memory and paperwork have gone
• Employment and personnel records from contractors, utilities, and the Bridgeport plant
• Building and powerhouse specifications, equipment schedules, and purchase orders naming valve manufacturers
• Maintenance and repair logs from plants, powerhouses, and building engineering departments
• Military service records and ship assignment histories for naval exposure
• Names and contact information for co-workers who can describe the same equipment and the same tasks
• Medical records establishing the diagnosis, including pathology

Our guide to asbestos records that help support a claim goes through each category in more detail, including how to request records that no longer sit in anyone's basement.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a Jenkins Bros. asbestos trust fund?

No. Jenkins Bros. has not reorganized in bankruptcy over its asbestos liabilities and has not established a section 524(g) asbestos trust. There is no claim form and no trust payment percentage. A Jenkins claim is an ordinary lawsuit, and a resolved claim is paid through a settlement or a verdict funded by the corporate defendant and its historic liability insurance.

Why is Jenkins Bros. named in mesothelioma lawsuits?

Jenkins built bronze, iron, and steel valves that were sealed with asbestos packing around the stem and asbestos sheet gaskets at the bonnet and the flanges. Workers who repacked, regasketed, and repaired those valves allege that cutting and scraping out the old material released asbestos fibers they later connect to mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases.

Do I have to remember the Jenkins name myself for the case to work?

No. New York courts have repeatedly held that a defendant moving for summary judgment cannot simply point to a plaintiff's inability to recall its brand. Product identification is normally reconstructed from purchase and maintenance records, building and powerhouse specifications, prior sworn testimony about what equipment was installed at a site, and co-worker accounts.

What is the difference between a Jenkins valve claim and a trust claim?

A trust claim is an administrative filing against a bankrupt company's trust, decided on a schedule of values. A Jenkins claim is litigation against a solvent defendant, which means discovery, depositions, expert proof, and a trial date. Most claimants end up doing both, because the same work history usually implicates bankrupt insulation and gasket makers as well.

Which workers appear most often in Jenkins Bros. cases?

Steamfitters, plumbers, pipefitters, boilermakers, powerhouse operators and inspectors, marine and shipyard workers, refinery and chemical plant maintenance crews, and building engineers. A separate group worked inside the Bridgeport, Connecticut plant where the valves and rubber goods were made.

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

Often yes. In most states, the filing clock for an asbestos claim starts at diagnosis rather than at exposure. 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 Jenkins valves and other equipment too?

That is the normal pattern rather than a problem. Asbestos cases routinely name many manufacturers, because a maintenance worker was rarely exposed to one company's product alone. Juries apportion fault among the parties they find responsible, and identifying every source usually increases rather than complicates the available recovery.

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. The filing deadline for those claims generally runs 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: October 6, 2026

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