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Compensation for asbestos-related diseases
[ch 6: page 114]The Compensation Act 2006 was enacted as a result of union campaigning and states that where workers have been exposed to asbestos by more than one employer and have developed asbestos-related illnesses, they can claim compensation from all the employers concerned. They do not have to prove which exposure was to blame. In legal terms, each employer is jointly and severally liable.
Due to the length of time between asbestos exposure and cancer diagnosis, many employers and their insurers no longer exist and so the liable successor organisations are often untraceable. The 2015 Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme is aimed at mesothelioma sufferers unable to claim compensation as their employer or employer’s liability insurer is untraceable.
Details of the scheme and the earlier “2008 scheme”, which allows the Department for Work and Pensions to make lump sum payments to people suffering from diffuse mesothelioma if they were exposed to asbestos in the UK and how to apply, are available at: www.gov.uk/diffuse-mesothelioma-payment/overview.
Lawyers representing the family of a man who developed mesothelioma said that a landmark judgment handed down in the Supreme Court in October 2014 would protect the rights of future sufferers to receive a fair settlement to provide for their families after their death.
Delivery driver Percy McDonald was exposed to asbestos dust when he regularly visited Battersea Power Station to pick up waste products in the 1950s. The defendant argued that Mr McDonald and his family could not receive compensation because he was not employed by the occupier of the site and because their primary work was not directly involved in the asbestos industry.
However, lawyers who represented Mr McDonald’s family after he died, just a week before the Supreme Court hearing, said the ruling in the family’s favour clarifies the law and gives greater protection to current and future victims of industrial diseases and accidents.
The majority judgment provided guidance on several key points of law:
• it establishes that under the Factories Act the occupier of the premises is responsible for the welfare of the people on site, not just those that it directly employs; and
• it states that the Asbestos Industry Regulations apply to all factories using asbestos — not just those involved in the asbestos industry.
McDonald (Deceased) v National Grid Electricity Transmission plc [2014] UKSC 53