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dark waters movie - is that stuff actually real or just hollywood

Patient · · 3,549 views
So I watched Dark Waters last night with my wife and it got me thinking about all the contamination stuff that goes on and nobody talks about it. The movie's about DuPont and that lawyer guy, Mark Ruffalo playing him. But is that actually what happened or did they make it all dramatic for the cameras.

I'm asking because I've been doing some reading since my meso diagnosis and there's a lot of sketchy stuff companies knew about and just didn't tell people. Makes me wonder how much of that movie was real.

Anyway the reason I'm bringing it up is because I was exposed to asbestos brake dust for like 30 years at the shop, and I'm wondering if there's a pattern here where companies just know this stuff is killing people and they cover it up. DuPont knew about PFOA contamination in West Virginia and they basically covered it up for decades. That's the Dark Waters story.

So yeah, the movie is based on a real lawsuit. Mark Ruffalo's character is based on a real lawyer named Rob Bilott who actually sued DuPont. The contamination happened in Parkersburg, West Virginia and it was in the water and everything. The company knew it was toxic and they didn't warn people.

Makes me think about the asbestos guys. They knew. They absolutely knew back in the 70s when I was breathing that brake dust in. Same pattern, different poison.

Has anyone else looked into whether their exposure company tried to hide stuff

9 Replies

Patient
They knew. I'm absolutely certain they knew because I've been digging through decades of internal memos and research papers since my diagnosis in November. Johns-Manville had studies dating back to the 1930s showing asbestos caused lung disease, and they actively suppressed that data. It's not speculation, it's documented.

Dark Waters is actually pretty faithful to what happened with DuPont. The lawyer Rob Bilott is real, the PFOA contamination is real, and yeah, they covered it up for years while people drank poisoned water. My oncologist actually mentioned the parallel when we were discussing my peritoneal mesothelioma. He said the asbestos companies followed almost the exact same playbook that DuPont did.

What's infuriating is the timeline. My exposure was 1978 to 1985 at the Manville plant here in Cleveland. By then we already knew asbestos was dangerous. The Surgeon General had warned about it in 1964. But they kept using it anyway, kept telling workers it was safe, and kept making money. I have journal entries from my early symptoms in 2023 that I didn't even connect to asbestos at the time because nobody ever told me it was a risk.

If you're looking into your company's knowledge, check if there's litigation history or if they settled cases quietly. Sometimes that paper trail tells you everything. The companies knew the same way DuPont knew about PFOA. The only difference was which chemical was killing us.
Attorney ✓ Expert Response
What Patricia mentioned about the memos is exactly what made asbestos litigation so significant legally. Those internal documents became the backbone of thousands of cases starting in the late 1970s. The Sumner Simpson papers, discovered during the Raybestos litigation around 1977, showed industry executives literally writing to each other about suppressing research. One letter from 1935 discussed keeping a study "confidential" so it wouldn't cause "undue alarm."

The DuPont/PFOA situation Rob Bilott uncovered follows the same basic pattern and honestly it's not Hollywood drama, it's just... how it tends to go with profitable industrial chemicals.

For brake dust specifically, there's documented evidence that manufacturers knew chrysotile asbestos fibers were being released during grinding and pad replacement. Some internal studies go back to the early 1960s. Whether that evidence is accessible and usable in your particular case depends on which manufacturers supplied your shop and what state you're in, because statutes of limitations and discovery rules vary quite a bit.

Worth talking to an asbestos attorney about what documentation might still exist for your exposure period. The paper trail from those decades is more substantial than most people realize.
3 found this helpful
Patient
Yeah that's exactly what I'm talking about, those memos prove they knew. The Sumner Simpson stuff from the 30s is wild, like they were literally sitting around deciding not to tell people. And then they kept doing the same thing for decades after that. Makes you mad when you think about it.

Did that kind of documentary evidence end up being what won most of those cases back then, or was there other stuff that mattered too?
Attorney ✓ Expert Response
The Dark Waters comparison is actually pretty apt legally. The Bilott case established something we see echoed in asbestos litigation constantly, which is that internal knowledge is the whole ballgame. DuPont had toxicology data on PFOA going back to the 1950s and the court record on that is public.

With brake dust specifically, the friction product manufacturers had their own internal testing programs running through the 60s and 70s. Some of those documents surfaced in discovery around 2001, 2002 and they showed awareness of fiber release at levels that were... let's say concerning. Same pattern Rob Bilott uncovered, just a different industry.

So yeah, your instinct about the pattern is sound. Whether that documentation is relevant to your specific exposure situation depends on which manufacturers' products were in your shop, which varies a lot by jurisdiction and by what's still available in the bankruptcy trust system. Consult an attorney about your particular circumstances, but the short answer to your original question is no, they didn't make that part up for Hollywood.
3 found this helpful
Attorney ✓ Expert Response
Carl, the Sumner Simpson papers are a gut punch every time. But here's something that doesn't get talked about enough in these threads... the statute of limitations question in asbestos cases gets complicated precisely because of that concealment history. Most states use a "discovery rule" meaning the clock starts when you reasonably knew or should have known about your exposure and its connection to your illness, not 1974 when someone in a boardroom was deciding what not to tell you. I had a client in 2019 who thought he'd waited too long, diagnosed at 71, shop mechanic his whole life. He hadn't. Your situation with brake dust specifically may involve multiple defendants across different manufacturers and that changes the math considerably. Definitely talk to someone about your specific timeline.
3 found this helpful
Patient
Yeah that discovery rule thing is actually what my lawyer mentioned when we first talked. I was kinda confused about it at first but it makes sense that they can't just hide something for 50 years and then say "time's up." The thing that got me was when he said the clock doesn't start ticking til you know you're sick, not when you got exposed. So all those years I was just a mechanic breathing that dust, that didn't count. Only now that I got diagnosed does it matter. Pretty wild when you think about it that way.
Family
You know what gets me? I spent 30 years teaching kids about ethics and doing the right thing, and then I find out Joe was breathing in this stuff while companies had the science locked away in filing cabinets. Dark Waters is real, yeah, but honestly it almost feels like the movie softens it because you can see Rob Bilott's face and root for him. With asbestos it's like... nobody made a movie, so people just forgot about it. The brake shops didn't have some crusading lawyer on their side back then, they just had guys like Joe who thought "well that's the job" and companies that counted on that attitude to keep quiet.

What really stuck with me after Joe's diagnosis last September was learning that the companies had actual warning labels they could have used. They just... didn't. Same choice, different era. I think what matters now is we're the ones who can't stay quiet about it, you know? That's the part the movie doesn't show - all of us in these forums basically doing what those lawyers had to do, which is just telling the truth.

How are you doing with all this stuff coming up after your diagnosis? That anger phase is real.
Patient
Yeah that movie got to me too. And you're asking the right question. The asbestos companies absolutely knew, man. I mean we're talking about the same playbook DuPont ran with PFOA. They had studies going back to the 40s showing asbestos was killing people and they just... didn't tell anybody.

The brake pad manufacturers knew. Johns Manville knew. They had internal memos, expert reports, all of it. They chose profits over warning guys like me. I was turning wrenches in that shop from 1970 to 2000 and nobody ever said "hey Carl, this stuff you're breathing is gonna give you cancer in 30 years." They knew the risk profile. They just decided it was cheaper to let us find out the hard way.

What helped me was actually getting my records together once I got diagnosed last December. Turns out my old shop had some documentation about what products we used, and some of that stuff had asbestos in it the whole time. Took my oncologist at Henry Ford about two weeks to dig into the exposure timeline with me and by then I already had a pretty good idea which companies were involved.

The Dark Waters thing, that whole lawsuit, that's real. Rob Bilott is a real lawyer and he actually fought DuPont for years. The movie doesn't even show how long it took. But yeah same corporate attitude. Know something's dangerous, bury it, hope people don't connect the dots before the statute of limitations runs out.

You might wanna look into what companies made your brake products back then. Just saying it could matter.
Patient
Yeah that movie got under my skin too. The stuff about DuPont knowing and just letting people get sick without saying anything, that's exactly what happened with asbestos companies back when I was working. I was breathing brake dust for 30 years straight, 1970 to 2000, and looking back at it now I can tell you those manufacturers absolutely knew. They had studies, they had warnings internally, they just didn't pass that info down to us working guys.

The pattern is real. Dark Waters shows it but honestly the asbestos cover-up was maybe even worse because it went on longer. We're talking decades where they knew asbestos caused lung cancer and mesothelioma and they just... didn't tell anybody. Kept using it anyway. My shop never had a single warning posted about the brake dust.

Since my diagnosis last December I've been digging into my old company's history and yeah, there's documentation out there if you know where to look. Old internal memos, studies they commissioned. It's frustrating as hell but also kinda validates what you already know in your gut, you know.

The thing that helped me was talking to someone who specialized in this stuff, because there's actually legal options for people who got exposed. Not saying you gotta do anything about it but it's good info to have. Some of those companies settled cases going back years. I wish I'd known that earlier instead of just accepting it as part of the job.

Anyway, you're not crazy for seeing the pattern. It's real.

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