Asbestos in commercial fridges and buildings
Our client, Mr G left school at the age of 15 and worked in the manufacturing of commercial refrigerators, where asbestos sheets were cut to size and used for insulation. His job involved the removal of old fridges and the installation of new ones. The fridges were manufactured at the workshop and then dismantled and taken to the relevant site and reassembled. This involved the cutting, drilling and fixing of asbestos on a daily basis.
He was then involved in refurbishing old houses and installing pre-fabricated bathrooms to the back of houses. Many of these contained asbestos.
Mr G then moved on to work for a builder’s merchant, and had to load and offload corrugated asbestos sheeting that was used for garage roofs, once or twice a week. Often the sheets would break or snap. The asbestos was soft and heavy and very difficult to handle in sheet form.
From 1989 to 2004 Mr G worked for his local borough council as a joiner, and was involved in dismantling asbestos garages. This was a large project and although Mr G was provided with paper overalls and a paper mask, large clouds of dust were generated during the work. He recalled taking off his overalls for lunch and then putting them back on to continue with the job at which time he was exposed to loose asbestos dust in the atmosphere.
Mr G instructed us in April 2007, after having first noticed symptoms around Christmas 2006. In August 2007 he was told he had mesothelioma.
Mr G had only been retired for 3 years when he was diagnosed and had been incredibly active doing DIY, gardening, painting and decorating.
After detailed investigation we found the relevant companies where Mr G had been exposed and their successors in title. We then contacted the relevant insurers.
The mesothelioma claim settled in March 2008 less than 12 months after we were instructed and we secured £150k for Mr G in compensation (settlement net of benefits received and payment under the Pneumoconiosis Workers Compensation Act).
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