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Correspondence and papers re and arising from Granada Television's World in Action (WIA) documentary ‘A small town tragedy’ (1982), investigating the refusal of British company Cape Industries Ltd to pay compensation awarded against them in an American court of law to workers of their North American subsidiary company in Bloomington, Illinois. The transmission of ‘A small town tragedy’ brought Flynn in contact with a number of American tort lawyers.

Includes (in reverse chronological order):

• correspondences with American lawyers, among them Hayden S Dent, and Steven Loble of Oppenheimers, London, 1983-1996
• transcripts of cross-examinations of Anthony John Penna & W R Bernays (14 + 15 March 1988), in Jimmy Wayne Adams et al. v. Cape Industries & Capasco Ltd, High Court of Justice, London
• draft article by Flynn on Cape Industries having found a new and formidable opponent in the US government
• responses to WIA programme 'A small town tragedy' (transmitted 5 July 1982): Granada Television internal notes and memoranda re the legality of the programme, press reaction to the programme, Cape complaint to the Independent Broadcasting Authority
• production documents (Flynn's research notebook, script of the documentary, interview transcripts)

Also includes Flynn's pitch for a programme (or an article on the history of company awareness of the dangers posed by asbestos), c.1981, and correspondence with Charles Patrick and Ron Motley, 1981, both tort lawyers in South Carolina who sued a subsidiary of international asbestos giant Turner & Newall.

Correspondence with Anthony Coombs of John Pickering & Partners LLP, in reverse chronological order. Covers current cases, T&N bankruptcy, Anthony Mendelle as witness on Cape Asbestos in Barking, pleural plaques, OEDA finances. Also includes

• copy of reasons for judgement in Frederick Price v. Powergen plc (1998)
• draft of John Pickering & Partners brochure on asbestos compensation in the UK (1997), written specifically for Australian audiences
• John Pickering & Partners brochures on compensation for personal injury, 1996

For subsequent correspondence with Coombs, see link below.

Correspondence and papers, chiefly re a visit of H C Lewinsohn (Chief Medical Officer, TBA Industrial Products Ltd) to India, November 1975.

Includes

• memoranda on T&N occupational health and safety policy
• instructions to T&N companies overseas to take up dust sampling and medical examinations, etc., 1972 onwards
• photocopies of index cards relating to information about overseas companies
• a little material 1965-1967 relating to the Asbestos Research Council Subcommittee on Health Precautions in the Insulation Contracting Industry, whose membership was recruited from the asbestos industry (mainly Cape Asbestos and T&N)

Papers, press clippings, and photographs relating to asbestos in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.
Includes:
-brief notes relating to asbestos cases in Barking
-some handwritten research notes about topics such as asbestos found in Barking and waste disposal procedures
-correspondence about Barking cases of asbestos and the Cape factory
-a lot of notes and correspondence about a case of asbestos contaminated soil in Whiting Avenue, 1978
-papers relating to Barking Community Health Council
-correspondence (chiefly with Margaret Sharkey) and telephone memoranda
-press clippings

Background research on companies and their insurers, in alphabetical order chiefly by name of employer or their insurer. Occasionally also by first letter of subject of inquiry (e.g. 'Power stations', 'hair driers', 'printing works'). Includes:

• solicitor’s correspondence, client correspondence, press reports, notes, copies of ‘British asbestos newsletter’ with annotations re cases
• final report by F D Pooley [n.d.] 'Observations on the exposure of gas mark workers at the Boots plant'
• copy of judgement in James Kelly (administrator of the estate of Patrick John Kelly, deceased) v. Smith & Partners Ltd, High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, 2000
• judgement in Rachel Lubbe et al. v. Cape plc, Supreme Court of Judicature, Court of Appeal (Division), 1999
• annotated photocopy of '67th annual report of National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers for [...] 1964'
• advice by Timothy Grice in Brian Jerrard v. Ministry of Defence, 1996
• note on matter of Mr Edward James Patrick Russell v. Post Office, 1992
• copy of opinion of Lord Cameron of Lochbroom in cause Margery Patricia Cook or Rennie v. Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Ltd et al., 1993

• set of court papers in the matter of Charlotte Hammond v. Circuit Court of Cook Country et al. (1981), Supreme Court of the State of Illinois; & Charlotte Hammond v. Cape Industries Limited & NAAC (1981), Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, County of McLean, Illinois
• photocopies of medical death certificates issued in Illinois 1978-1981
• photocopies c.1979 of papers from James Bennett's claim against the Union Asbestos & Rubber Company (Unarco) of Chicago, 1940
• photocopies of correspondence between Unarco and its insurers over occupational disease, 1952-1958
• short publication on asbestos heir Tommy Manville, 1940

• Cape/subsidiaries correspondence 1964-1972. Source uncertain (no exhibit marks, no covering correspondence)
• instructions from J L Sparks, Group Financial Controller Cape Industries Limited, to Financial Directors/Company Secretaries – all subsidiaries, 1974-1978

• coroner's report on Edwin W Holland, d. 2 April 1985 (plaintiff’s exhibit)

NAAC correspondence, as follows:

• 1974-1976 (chiefly between Joan Holtze, NAAC, and J L Sparks, Group Financial Controller of Cape Industries Ltd, London)
• 1969-1973 (chiefly from and to Charles G Morgan / Joan Holtze (both NAAC) and representatives of Cape Asbestos in the UK, South Africa and subsidiaries elsewhere)
• 1962-1968: correspondence of Robert E Cryor including minutes of shareholder meetings and meetings of company directors

Communications and documentation obtained chiefly through contacts with American litigators whose clients included victims of asbestos-related disease. First among these litigators was James Walker of Walker & Wylder, Bloomington, Illinois, whose correspondence and document exchange with Flynn started c.1982.

Cape's North American subsidiaries included:

• North American Asbestos Corporation (NAAC)
• Union Asbestos & Rubber Company (Unarco)
• PPG Industries Inc.

Set of exhibits, marked and annotated. Includes:

• civil subpoena of Max E Meyer in Delora Stewart et al. / Geneva Eileen Mau et al., both v. NAAC, 1987
• reponse to request to admit in Delora Stewart et al. v. NAAC (8 January 1987), Circuit Court of the Eleventh Circuit, McLean County, Illinois
• answers to interrogatories in Dorothy Betts et al. v. Unarco Industries et al. (1985), Circuit Court of the Eleventh Circuit, McLean County, Illinois
• Cape Asbestos correspondence 1954-1985, including between Richard Gaze (the company's chief scientist), company solicitors, additional legal support (Davis, Arnold & Cooper Solicitors, London; Lord Bissell & Brook, Chicago). See also Gaze deposition at FLYNN/2/3/3

• press clippings 1977-1983
• photocopies of North American Asbestos Corporation (NAAC) correspondence and papers 1953-1983, including solicitors correspondence
• (marked) copy of memorandum by Richard K Decker, November 1962, advising on legal interpretation of the relationship between Cape and its subsidiary NAAC viz. whether US courts would be inclined to think they have jurisdiction of Cape, (a) because Cape's effect on US trade could be shown to be direct and substantial, and (b) because the NAAC as Cape's agent plays an active part in Cape's business which "is continuous and could not be easily carried out without NAAC"

Originally contained a (duplicate) copy of the deposition of William S Haines (June 1980), in Charlotte Hammond v. Cape Industries & NAAC, etc. See FLYNN/2/3/4

Photocopies of 'Cape Asbestos Company Magazine' (the house journal of Cape Asbestos Company Ltd), December 1951 to Autumn 1963.

Contains occasional post-it markers by either Flynn or Tweedale.

A key focus of Flynn’s asbestos-related investigations were the activities of Cape Industries Ltd, registered in December 1893 as Cape Asbestos Company Ltd (name changed in 1974). The series listed here includes early registration documents, Cape Industries annual reports from 1974, as well as a run of the companies' house journal ‘CAC Magazine’, 1951-1963. For further business papers of Cape Industries, see also FLYNN 2/2.

Correspondence and papers (chiefly papers) relating to the Cape Asbestos Fund. Includes successive proposals 'for a scheme of arrangement in respect of asbestos liabilities’.