Fatal mesothelioma claim - Car plant worker
In July 2006 Boyes Turner's industrial disease lawyers were instructed on behalf of Mr Z to pursue damages for malignant mesothelioma.
Mr Z was born in 1942, and was diagnosed in July 2006 when he was aged 64. Sadly, he died in September 2007. Mr Z had worked for 17 years on the production line at Morris Motors, subsequently British Leyland in Oxford. He was not working directly with asbestos himself, but some of the car parts he was working with contained asbestos, and there was a rolling system of maintenance to the fabric of the factory at Morris/British Leyland. Mr Z described working on the assembly line on a shift system, and regularly seeing the laggers and fitters working on the gantries above him and flakes of asbestos falling from the gantries down on to the packing line. Negligent exposure to asbestos was conceded fairly early on, but there was an issue over causation of the mesothelioma. The Defendants picked up on an entry in the medical records which seems to suggest the Claimant had pleural plaques back in 1971. At the Defendants insistence this was investigated, even though the test for recoverability of damages for mesothelioma is whether or not any particular period of exposure materially contributed towards the risk of development of mesothelioma, and not whether it was totally responsible for it.
The Defendants were eventually persuaded of this and the industrial disease claim settled for £130,000 in March 2008.
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