If you suspect that your health has been damaged by exposure to asbestos there are powerful reasons why you should contact a solicitor without delay. In one case, an ex-scaffolder’s decision to take legal advice before his death from asbestos-related cancer ultimately led to his loved ones receiving £85,000 in compensation.
The man died from mesothelioma – a cancer of the lining of the lungs which is almost invariably caused by asbestos exposure – at the age of 60. He had, however, taken legal advice during his final illness and made a sworn statement which proved decisive in his family’s damages claim against his former employers.
On the basis of that statement – which was the sole evidence of his working history and without which his family’s claim would have stood no chance of success – a judge found that, whilst engaged in erecting scaffolding in the boiler room of a large factory between 2000 and 2003, he had regularly been exposed to asbestos dust given off by disintegrating pipework lagging.
In upholding a claim brought by his sister on behalf of his estate, the judge accepted his account that he had not been issued with a protective mask; that he wore his own clothes to work, shaking dust out of garments at the end of the day; and that he was not warned about the dangers of inhaling asbestos fibres. The damages payable by the scaffolding company for which he worked at the time were agreed in the light of the judge’s ruling.
