Legal Proceedings

3 Months Ended

Apr. 01, 2012

Legal Proceedings [Abstract]

Legal Proceedings

Note 12.  Legal Proceedings

     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.  The Company currently has 77 pending silica cases and 26 pending asbestos cases.  To date, 1,389 silica cases and 9 asbestos cases have been dismissed. One asbestos case was dismissed in the first quarter of 2012.  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 not settled any silica or asbestos lawsuits to date.  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 was approximately $0.2 million, the majority of which has been reimbursed by Pfizer Inc pursuant to the terms of certain agreements entered into in connection with the Company's initial public offering in 1992.  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.

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. We are now conducting a site-specific risk assessment required by the regulators.

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. 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 April 1, 2012.

     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 April 1, 2012.

     The Company and its subsidiaries are not party to any other material pending legal proceedings, other than routine litigation incidental to their businesses.