Cancer victims made to pay the price for negligence as companies limit their financial exposure
Mesothelioma compensation
03/05/2006
Corus UK Ltd has been successful in denying widow, Sylvia Barker, Mesothelioma compensation which had previously been awarded by a court for the death of her husband Vernon, a former employee at Shotton Steelworks in Deeside in the 1960s.
The case was taken to the House of Lords on Monday 13th March 2006 by Corus UK Ltd and its insurers. The judgment, made public today, means that victims of mesothelioma will not get full compensation through the courts unless they sue all of their former employers who exposed them to asbestos. Negligent employers will not be liable to pay 100% compensation if other culpable employers have gone out of business and their insurers not found.
The judgment will seriously limit the amount of compensation, and the rights, of thousands of sufferers from one of the cruellest and most painful forms of cancer, Mesothelioma.
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Speaking about the judgement Adrian Budgen, Head of Industrial Diseases Group at Irwin Mitchell said “this judgment punishes the Cancer sufferer whilst saving money for the companies and their insurers.”
“Unless you can sue all of the companies that exposed you to asbestos you will not be able to get full compensation anymore. The benefit of the doubt is being given to companies who are guilty of negligence. If you had two employers who exposed you to asbestos negligently for an equal length of time and one of them has gone out of business by the time you are diagnosed with mesothelioma, and did not have insurance cover, you will get half the compensation than if you only had one employer who exposed you to asbestos.”
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Expert Mesothelioma lawyer Mr Budgen continued “This blame ‘apportionment’ argument by companies will mean people with only months to live, and their families, will lose out through no fault of their own. Given the length of time symptoms from asbestos exposure take to manifest, which in the case of Mesothelioma is between 20 and 50 years, many of the other equally negligent companies will have gone out of business.”
Caused almost exclusively by exposure to Asbestos, Mesothelioma is incurable and invariably fatal within 1-2 years of diagnosis. It is estimated that there are close to 2000 deaths from Mesothelioma a year in the UK.
The number of deaths in the UK due to mesothelioma has increased almost threefold over the 20 year period from 2,787 in 1981-85 to 7,476 in 1996-2000 and has not yet peaked.
Asbestos related illnesses take the lives of over 4000 people each year in the UK, greater than the number of people killed in road traffic accidents.
The last 6 years have seen a series of generic challenges by employers and their employer’s liability insurers, all with the aim of cutting compensation payments to asbestos victims.
Speaking on behalf of the Sheffield and Rotherham Asbestos Group (SARAG) Paula Walker said “This is nothing more than a cost saving exercise by employers and their insurance companies. It sends out the completely wrong message that companies are not wholly to blame for bad working practices that kill” Ms Walker continued “This decision will have a massive impact on the quality of life of people suffering from the most horrifying symptoms, whose only crime was breathing the air at their place of work”
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