On 3 May 2006 the House of Lords handed down a ruling that means asbestos compensation for many mesothelioma sufferers and their families will be cut.


In the appeal, insurers sought to limit an employer's liability to pay damages in cases where a worker may have been employed by several firms, none of whom can be specifically blamed for the onset of the fatal illness. They argued that an employer's liability should be a proportion of the total compensation, to reflect the extent to which it contributed to an employee's exposure to asbestos.


In a unanimous judgment on 16 May 2002, the House of Lords ruled in Fairchild -v- Glenhaven that sufferers of mesothelioma should be awarded 100% compensation in cases where workers had been exposed to asbestos dust during employment by more than one employer, even where it could not be established which was to blame.


Up until then the Court of Appeal had held that, because it could not be said on balance of probabilities whether a particular employer was responsible, the claims must fail against all employers.
This recent appeal raised the question of whether compensation should be denied altogether when a mesothelioma sufferer was in contact with asbestos during a period of self-employment, even if they were also exposed to asbestos in a different period as an employee. Insurers also argued that they should only be liable to pay damages for periods of guilty exposure and employers should not be liable to pay 100% of the compensation if other culpable employers had gone out of business and their insurers could not be found.


The Lord's decision now means that there will be a compensation limit in cases involving several employers, none of whom can be specifically blamed for the onset of the fatal illness.

Follow up:

The test case of Sylvia Barker was at the centre of the dispute. She was awarded £152,000 in the High Court three years ago for the death of her husband. He had been exposed to asbestos while he was employed at two different companies and for short periods during 20 years of self-employment.


Mesothelioma is a form of cancer, which principally affects the lining of the lungs and lower digestive tract. The typically long delay between first exposure to asbestos and death from mesothelioma (seldom less than 15 years, but possibly as long as 60 years) means that deaths occurring now, and most of those expected to occur in the future reflect industrial conditions of the past rather than current work practices.


The British Lung Foundation (BLF) has warned that mesothelioma currently kills around 2,000 people every year. Deaths have increased ten-fold since 1968, with the total number in the UK expected to peak at between 1,950 and 2,450 deaths annually sometime between 2011 and 2015.


This latest move follows the recent successful appeal by the insurance industry to deny compensation to people suffering from Pleural Plaques, a scarring of the lung tissue caused from asbestos exposure.


Source: Thames Laboratories