Families win asbestos claim ruling

THOUSANDS OF relatives of industrial workers who died of an asbestosrelated lung cancer will get compensation as a result of a “landmark” insurance liability ruling yesterday by the UK’S highest court, lawyers say.

The Supreme Court decided that liability was “triggered” when employees were exposed to asbestos dust — not when symptoms of mesothelioma emerged, sometimes decades later.

Solicitors said the ruling meant that victims were covered by policies in place when asbestos fibres were inhaled, and employers’ insurers would have to meet compensation claims.

Families said they hoped that the decision by a panel of f ive Supreme Court justices in London would end years of litigation and lead to speedy insurance payouts.

Judges said industrial diseases which could lie dormant for long periods raised “peculiar” legal difficulties and liability for deaths caused by mesothelioma — a “hideous” and “inevitably fatal” cancer of the lung linings — had “preoccupied” courts in recent years.

Union bosses and victims’ families criticised insurance firms who fought the case, saying they should have accepted responsibility and spent money given to lawyers on compensation.

One insurance f irm involved in litigation said it had wanted “resolution” of the liability issue in order to “provide greater certainty”.

Len Mccluskey, general secretary of the Unite union, said: “This is a landmark ruling which will affect thousands of victims of asbestos.

“It is a disgrace that insurance companies went to such lengths to shirk their responsibilities. For callous insurers this means the responsibility holiday is over.”

Maureen Edwards (56), of Speke, Liverpool, whose father Charles O’farrell died aged 81 in 2003, said she hoped that the fight for compensation was over.

“It’s been a long battle, and we couldn’t have done it without the help of Unite, but today’s ruling makes it worthwhile,” she said.

Mrs Edwards said her father had been a steel erector who had worked on a gasworks at Bootle in Merseyside in the 1960s.

“He always had a cough,” she said, “but it wasn’t until the last two years of his life that we realised it was mesothelioma.”