Armley asbestos disaster
On 20 July 1982, Yorkshire Television broadcast the documentary "Alice - A Fight For Life", predominantly the story of Alice Jefferson, who had worked at the Acre Mill asbestos factory in Hebden Bridge for just nine months when she was 17 years old. Thirty years later she was diagnosed with mesothelioma and given only six months to live. The documentary was also an "exposé on the workings of the asbestos industry." Its broadcast resulted in £60 million being knocked off T&N's share price overnight, headlines in the national newspapers, and the setting up of a government enquiry. Within ten days the government had halved the legal limit for asbestos dust in the workplace. In 1988 Yorkshire Television picked up the "Yorkshire Evening Post" story and produced a second critical investigation focusing on the pattern of deaths in Armley, and contradicting the government's reasons for refusing an inquiry. Called "Too Close to Home", it was broadcast as part of the "First Tuesday" documentary series on 6 December 1988.
Levy Konigsberg
The firm's asbestos litigation involvement traces back to Levy's role in the litigation during the 1980s and early 1990s. Levy was one of the attorneys, cited by the New York Times, as representing workers at the Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut in cases brought to trial beginning in 1982. In 1986, when Johns-Manville was completing its bankruptcy reorganization, Levy, who was head of the committee representing asbestos victims, was chosen to serve on the Board of Directors for the company while it emerged from bankruptcy.