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Contingencies | 9 Months Ended
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Sep. 27, 2020
Contingencies [Abstract] |
Contingencies | Note 15. Contingencies The Company is party to a number of lawsuits arising in the normal course of our business. Certain of the Company’s subsidiaries are among numerous defendants in a number of cases seeking damages for exposure to silica or to asbestos containing materials. As of September 27, 2020, the Company has three pending silica cases and 197 pending asbestos cases. In total, 1,493 silica cases and 88 asbestos cases have been dismissed as of the end of the third quarter, not including any lawsuits against AMCOL or American Colloid Company dismissed prior to our acquisition of AMCOL. Twenty-six new asbestos cases were filed in the third quarter of 2020. Five asbestos cases and no silica cases were dismissed during the third quarter of 2020. Most of these claims do not provide adequate information to assess their merits, the likelihood that the Company will be found liable, or the magnitude of such liability, if any. Additional claims of this nature may be made against the Company or its subsidiaries. At this time management anticipates that the amount of the Company’s liability, if any, and the cost of defending such claims, will not have a material effect on its financial position or results of operations. The Company has settled only one silica lawsuit, for a nominal amount, and no asbestos lawsuits to date (not including any that may have been settled by AMCOL prior to completion of the acquisition). We are unable to state an amount or range of amounts claimed in any of the lawsuits because state court pleading practices do not require identifying the amount of the claimed damage. The aggregate cost to the Company for the legal defense of these cases since inception continues to be insignificant. The majority of the costs of defense for these cases, excluding cases against AMCOL or American Colloid, are reimbursed by Pfizer Inc. pursuant to the terms of certain agreements entered into in connection with the Company’s initial public offering in 1992. The Company is entitled to indemnification, pursuant to agreement, for sales prior to the initial public offering. Of the 197 pending asbestos cases as of the end of the third quarter, 57 of the non-AMCOL cases are subject to indemnification, in whole or in part, because the plaintiffs claim liability based on sales of products that occurred either entirely before the initial public offering, or both before and after the initial public offering. One hundred thirty-two of the one hundred thirty-eight remaining non-AMCOL cases as of the end of the third quarter are subject to indemnity in part until dates of exposure, which were not alleged in the complaint, can be ascertained in discovery. In the six remaining non-AMCOL cases, exposure is alleged to have been after the Company’s initial public offering in 1992. The remaining two cases involve AMCOL only, so no Pfizer indemnity is available. Our experience has been that the Company is not liable to plaintiffs in any of these lawsuits and the Company does not expect to pay any settlements or jury verdicts in these lawsuits. The Company was the respondent in an arbitration requested by the Plan Administrator for the Bankruptcy Estate of Novinda Corp. (“Novinda”), a start-up company which declared bankruptcy in April 2016 and with which the Company had several relationships, including an equity and debt interest and a product supply relationship. On July 30, 2018, the Plan Administrator filed a Demand for Arbitration against the Company and certain of its officers for the alleged destruction of Novinda’s business. In the second quarter of 2020, the arbitration panel rendered an award in the arbitration, finding for the Company in part and for Novinda in part. The Company has recorded a charge of $9.5 million related to this matter during the first nine months of 2020, representing the damages, interest and costs awarded by the panel to Novinda. In addition, the Company has recorded a total of $11.8 million in litigation expense related to this matter, $0.9 million of which was recorded in 2020. Environmental Matters On April 9, 2003, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection issued an administrative consent order relating to our Canaan, Connecticut plant where both our Refractories segment and Specialty Minerals segment have operations. We agreed to the order, which includes provisions requiring investigation and remediation of contamination associated with historic use of polychlorinated biphenyls (“PCBs”) and mercury at a portion of the site. We have completed the required investigations and submitted several reports characterizing the contamination and assessing site-specific risks. We are awaiting regulators’ approval of the risk assessment report, which will form the basis for a proposal by the Company concerning eventual remediation. We believe that the most likely form of overall site remediation will be to leave the existing contamination in place (with some limited soil removal), encapsulate it, and monitor the effectiveness of the encapsulation. We anticipate that a substantial portion of the remediation cost will be borne by the United States based on its involvement at the site from 1942 – 1964, as historic documentation indicates that PCBs and mercury were first used at the facility at a time of U.S. government ownership for production of materials needed by the military. Pursuant to a Consent Decree entered on October 24, 2014, the United States paid the Company $2.3 million in the 4th quarter of 2014 to resolve the Company’s claim for response costs for investigation and initial remediation activities at this facility through October 24, 2014. Contribution by the United States to any future costs of investigation or additional remediation has, by agreement, been left unresolved. Though the cost of the likely remediation remains uncertain pending completion of the phased remediation decision process, we have estimated that the Company’s share of the cost of the encapsulation and limited soil removal described above would approximate $0.4 million, which has been accrued as of September 27, 2020. The Company is evaluating options for upgrading the wastewater treatment facilities at its Adams, Massachusetts plant. This work has been undertaken pursuant to an administrative Consent Order originally issued by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (“DEP”) on June 18, 2002. This order was amended on June 1, 2009 and on June 2, 2010. The amended Order includes the investigation by January 1, 2022 of options for ensuring that the facility’s wastewater treatment ponds will not result in unpermitted discharge to groundwater. Additional requirements of the amendment include the submittal by July 1, 2022 of a plan for closure of a historic lime solids disposal area. Preliminary engineering reviews completed in 2005 indicate that the estimated cost of wastewater treatment upgrades to operate this facility beyond 2024 may be between $6 million and $8 million. The Company estimates that the remaining remediation costs would approximate $0.4 million, which has been accrued as of September 27, 2020. The Company and its subsidiaries are not party to any other material pending legal proceedings, other than routine litigation incidental to their businesses.

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