Fear of liability drives corporate concealment of known health harms to workers.

Evidence

The second part of the motive—to avoid appearing immoral in the eyes of others—leads to concealment of the harms from the outside world. Individuals in corporations, when they discovered, for example, that asbestos used by workers was leading to high rates of lung cancer, sometimes chose to conceal that fact, perhaps because they were concerned with the liabilities they would incur if they revealed that information. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4012

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the asbestos concealment cases central to litigation history and the broader pattern of corporate liability-driven secrecy; connects to Milgrom’s work on private adjudication and liability avoidance.