Asbestos Related Claims
In the North East, we are proud of our industrial heritage, but these heavy industries have also left a legacy of ill health and industrial diseases.
As a result, Marrons has a long history of representing clients with asbestos -related illnesses such as pleural plaques, asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma.
We now maintain a department dedicated solely to obtaining compensation for asbestos victims, with clients coming to us from all over the country.
Whilst we provide basic information about asbestos claims on this site, we maintain a dedicated asbestos website with more detailed information at www.asbestos-injury.co.uk
If you are are told you have an illness caused by asbestos, you should also get legal advice quickly, both about compensation you can get through the Courts and about benefits you can get from the Government.
When you are told you have an asbestos disease, you normally have 3 years to start a court action. If you have left it longer than 3 years, this time limit can sometimes be overcome. The quicker court proceedings can be started, the better it is likely to be for you.
You have to be able to show that your employers were to blame. If you have breathed in asbestos dust at work without proper protection during the last 35 years, your employers will certainly be at fault. If it was more than 35 years ago, you still have a good case if you were exposed to a lot of dust. In practice, employers will often accept the blame once court proceedings are started on your behalf.
As soon as you are told that you have an asbestos-related condition, or your doctor suspects that you have such a condition, you should claim the appropriate benefits from the Benefits Agency.
You may not know whether your employers are still in business, but a solicitorwe can find out. Even if your employer no longer exists, they can be brought back into existence so that you could still get compensation. It is only worthwhile bringing the company back into existence if we can find out who insured your employer while you worked there. If this cannot be done, we can apply for a payment under a Government scheme called the Pneumoconiosis etc (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979. But you will only get such a payment if the Benefits Agency awards you industrial injuries disablement benefit for an asbestos-related condition.
Asbestos Related Conditions
Pleural plaques
These are scars on the “Pleura”, an envelope-like lining between the lung and the rib-cage filled with lubricating liquid. The pleura’s function is to help reduce friction and wear and tear on the lung itself.
Pleural plaques are symptomless because the scars occur on the side of the pleura nearest the ribcage (parietal pleura) and so do not impair lung function. The condition is also benign and so non-cancerous. Plaques will not themselves turn into one of the more serious asbestos related conditions mentioned below. They are however, a marker of a significant level of asbestos exposure and often cause patients anxiety due to the worry that because of this exposure, they could later develop one of the more serious asbestos related conditions below.
Following the decision of the House of Lords of 17th October 2007 in the test case litigation of Rothwell v Chemical & Insulating Co Ltd and Others (in which we acted for one of the 4 Appellants) it is no longer possible to pursue a claim for pleural plaques alone.
There is, however, the possibility of Government intervention and there has been press speculation that Ministers will shortly be announcing a deal which will see insurance companies agreeing to pay around £5,000 in compensation to individual plaques sufferers. For further information see the News Section.
We are monitoring the situation closely and will keep clients advised of developments
Asbestosis
You need to have breathed in quite a lot of dust over at least several months or even a year or two to get asbestosis. Many people think asbestosis is cancer. It is not. There is a risk that you might get cancer in the future.
Nowadays, asbestosis tends to come on 20 years or more after your first contact with asbestos dust. Asbestosis is identified by x-ray, or a special scan called CAT (or CT) scan, by work history, clinical examination and lung function tests.
Asbestosis is a form of fibrosis. Asbestos fibres become stuck in your lungs and cause inflammation and scarring, affecting the efficiency of your lungs. You may have breathlessness, cough, and other symptoms. Some people with asbestosis have no symptoms or very little disability. Others are seriously breathless, have a bad cough, and other symptoms.
Asbestosis often gets worse the longer you have it, but this does not always happen. It cannot be cured. For very mild asbestosis with little or no effect, Courts will now award about £15,000. For more advanced asbestosis, involving significant breathlessness, cough and other symptoms, Courts will award up to £60,000 for the disease itself.
If you lose your job or cannot work, or need care, you will be awarded more compensation.
You have the choice of a "once and for all" award, or of keeping open your right to return to court for more compensation if you develop a more serious illness in the future.
Asbestos-related lung cancer
Asbestos has been known to cause lung cancer since about 1955. People who have asbestosis and who also smoke cigarettes are many times more likely to get lung cancer than people who have asbestosis and are not smokers. If you get lung cancer caused by asbestos, a Court will award you between £35,000 and £55,000 for the illness itself. In addition, you will get compensation for loss of earnings, and the value of care your family and friends give you, the cost of professional nursing care and any special aid/adaptations you need to buy.
Experts think blue or brown asbestos are more dangerous than white asbestos. But all forms of asbestos are dangerous, and in practice you will probably not know what type you have breathed in.
It usually takes 20 years from being exposed to asbestos before lung cancer develops.
The Benefits Agency will accept that lung cancer is caused by asbestos if you have either asbestosis or a certain amount of pleural thickening.
In a court action, it is difficult to prove that lung cancer is caused by asbestos dust if you do not already have asbestosis. So it is difficult, but not impossible, to get compensation for lung cancer, without asbestosis. But if you have inhaled a very large number of asbestos fibres after heavy exposure, most doctors now believe this can cause lung cancer without first causing asbestosis.
If you die, your estate and dependants will be able to carry on with the claim. "Dependants" can mean wife, partner, children - if they relied on you for money or help. "Partner" means someone you lived with continuously for 2 years as a husband or wife or same sex partner up to the date of death.
If you were dependent on someone who has already died of asbestos disease, you can get compensation. A dependant can recover their financial loss and their loss of services. Some dependants are awarded a fixed sum of £11,800, called "bereavement".
If you are the executor of the estate of someone who died from asbestos disease, you can sue for compensation, if the person who died has not been compensated. The Estate will be compensated for the victim's pain and suffering, loss of earnings up to their death, the cost of nursing them, and the cost of the funeral.
A court action should be started within 3 years of the person's death, but judges will sometimes allow you to bring an action more than 3 years after the death. You should never assume it is too late, but get advice quickly.
Mesothelioma
Mesothelioma is a form of cancer nearly always caused by asbestos. It is usually a tumour of the pleura, which is the lining between your lung and your rib cage, but it can sometimes affect your peritoneum, the lining between your bowel and the cavity of your abdomen. On rare occasions, it may affect other parts of the body. Specialist doctors or nurses can control pain successfully. They are called palliative care experts. Macmillan nurses are highly trained in the management of this illness.
Mesothelioma can be difficult to diagnose, as there are many other causes of pleural thickening and pleural effusions (fluid around the lung). These conditions can be caused by other cancers, or by infections or persistent inflammation. Usually, a biopsy, or more than one biopsy, has to be done in order to diagnose mesothelioma.
Symptoms usually begin with breathlessness or with back or chest pain caused by a build up of fluid around the lung. This is called a pleural effusion. This fluid can be removed from the pleural space to relieve symptoms, and a type of surgery called pleurodesis is sometimes carried out to prevent fluid building up again in the pleural space. Patients can develop swelling and discomfort in the places where biopsies have been carried out, or surgery performed. Radiotherapy is now used to treat these symptoms.
You do not have to get asbestosis in order to get mesothelioma. Most people who develop mesothelioma do not have asbestosis. Mesothelioma has no connection with cigarette smoking.
Practically all mesotheliomas are caused by asbestos exposure. It can be caused by short periods of exposure to asbestos. You might not even have worked with asbestos. People who lived near asbestos factories have developed mesothelioma. People have developed mesothelioma as a result of living with someone else who worked with asbestos and brought dust home on their clothes.
If someone dies of mesothelioma, or any other asbestos-related disease, the law says there must be an inquest, so the coroner must be told immediately, and there should be a post-mortem.
If you have a relative who died of mesothelioma, and the doctor instructed by the Coroner says that asbestos found in the lungs did not cause the mesothelioma, or the mesothelioma was not caused by work, you should get a second opinion.
Many types of work generated enough asbestos dust to cause mesothelioma. Garage workers, joiners, carpenters, electricians, building workers, dockers, plumbers, heating engineers, and others, are at risk. See the list of asbestos products later on.
It is predicted that in the UK the number of people who will die each year from mesothelioma will rise to about 2,700, and will not begin to fall for another 20 years.
It is predicted that in the UK the number of people who will die each year from mesothelioma will rise to about 2,700, and will not begin to fall for another 20 years.
It is rare for someone under 40 to get mesothelioma, because there is always a long delay between first exposure to asbestos and development of the illness. Some doctors think there must be a 20 year delay, but people have got this illness as early as 10 years after breathing in asbestos. Knowledge of mesothelioma is more recent than knowledge of asbestosis. It has been known since 1957 or 1958 by some asbestos manufacturers, but widely known in industry since the mid 1960s, that very small amounts of asbestos dust can cause mesothelioma.
This means that if you get mesothelioma, or any other asbestos disease, because of contact with asbestos within the last 35 years, you can almost certainly get compensation through the courts if the company that exposed you, either at work, or to its asbestos products, still exists.
The difficulty you can face in getting compensation is that the firm or company may have gone out of business. Even if they have gone out of business, it is worth seeing a solicitor, because you should be able to get compensation under a special Government scheme. Or a solicitor may be able to bring the company back into existence and bring a court action against it.
Typical awards for mesothelioma itself are now £50,000 - £60,000. Extra amounts are awarded for lost earnings, care, specialist equipment, medical expenses, and for lost income, which the victim would have had in the future, but for the illness. Compensation claims for mesothelioma are frequently worth £100,000 or more.
