Extension on Filing of Asbestos Claims OKd

A New York federal bankruptcy judge Friday extended until March 1 the deadline for claims against the Manville Corp. for the cost of removing cancer-causing asbestos from Los Angeles County homes, business structures and county government buildings.

A spokesman for Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, who represented private and public property owners here as an intervener in a lawsuit filed by more than 500 hospitals, said the extension also applies to those hospitals and to all county buildings around the country because the National Assn. of County Governments was represented.

For all others, the deadline for submitting claims to the bankruptcy court expired Jan. 31.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Burton Lifland declined to grant a three-month extension sought by Reiner and others, who contended that the Jan. 31 cutoff date was not adequately publicized by the Denver-based company.

Manville, formerly Johns-Manville and long the major producer of asbestos insulation and other products containing the fibrous material, filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy laws in 1982, when it foresaw a possible $2 billion in damage claims from thousands of workers exposed to asbestos over the years.

Reiner stepped into the asbestos battle in late January, when he criticized the company for failing to make the approaching deadline widely known.

A company spokeswoman said then that Manville had spent nearly $1 million advertising the deadline in 50 of the nation’s largest newspapers and in two magazines.

The forms have been distributed at the American Lung Assn.’s Los Angeles office, 1670 Beverly Blvd., and will be available through the Los Angeles County Health Services Department.