Ambler holds a distinction no other Pennsylvania town wants: it was known as the asbestos capital of the world, home to Keasbey & Mattison, one of the country’s major asbestos product manufacturers. Mesothelioma claims from Ambler are unusual because exposure was not limited to the factory floor; it reached homes and neighborhoods. Michael C. Schafle, Esq., counsel on the Philadelphia asbestos docket, evaluates these cases for Montgomery County families, offering consultations at no cost.
Asbestos exposure at Keasbey & Mattison’s Ambler plant
K&M manufactured asbestos-cement shingles, pipe insulation, textiles, and related products in Ambler for decades, and the company shaped the town around its plant. Workers handled raw asbestos fiber directly, from unloading it to mixing, forming, cutting, and packing finished goods. That is among the most intense occupational exposure patterns documented anywhere. To learn more about this, see our Ambler Keasbey & Mattison exposure page, part of the Pennsylvania exposure sites index.
The waste piles the Asbestos industry left behind in Ambler
Manufacturing waste was dumped locally for years, and the piles became a lasting environmental problem. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency added the BoRit Asbestos site in the Ambler area to its Superfund program, a federal designation reserved for the nation’s serious contamination sites. That EPA listing matters legally as well as historically: it is public documentation that asbestos was present in the community itself, not only inside the plant gates. Federal cleanup attention has kept the record current for over a decade, so nobody evaluating an Ambler claim has to be persuaded from scratch that the exposure here was real.
Who can file an Ambler asbestos claim beyond plant workers
Because of how Ambler’s exposure happened, several groups beyond plant workers have viable claims:
- Spouses and children who laundered dusty work clothes, a pattern covered on our secondary exposure page
- Residents who lived, played, or worked near the plant and waste piles
- Construction and demolition tradespeople who later disturbed K&M products installed in area buildings
Mesothelioma has a long latency period between exposure and diagnosis, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI asbestos fact sheet), which means people exposed as children in Ambler are among those being diagnosed now.
Where compensation comes from
Keasbey & Mattison itself is long gone, but successor entities and the broader network of asbestos defendants and bankruptcy trusts remain. The trusts alone were funded with billions set aside for current and future victims, per the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO-11-819). An Ambler case typically pairs trust claims with litigation, and the town’s unusually well-documented history works in a claimant’s favor: the burden of proving that asbestos was present is lighter when federal agencies have already found it.
Montgomery County families can seek justice
Ambler sits about 16 miles from Michael Schafle’s Philadelphia office, close enough for in-person meetings when families want them. His role as counsel in the Philadelphia courts’ asbestos program (In re: Asbestos Litigation, No. 1986-00001) anchors the practice, and he files each case where its facts point; Montgomery County exposure does not automatically mean a Montgomery County filing or a Philadelphia one, and the venue call is made deliberately once the evidence is in. Pennsylvania’s deadline from diagnosis applies (42 Pa. C.S. § 5524), as explained on the statute of limitations page, and wrongful death cases are filed per these deadlines as well. His statewide practice is mapped in the city index.
Many Ambler claimants never held an asbestos job, so they assume they have no claim. That assumption is frequently wrong here. Where you lived, where a parent worked, and what years you spent in town can be enough to justify a serious look.
Tell us through the free case review, and we will tell you if you have a valid claim.
Michael Schafle also keeps a site just for Ambler families, mesotheliomalawyeramblerpa.com, with the local exposure history, the deadlines that apply, and the same free case review.