 |
|
|
|
|
|
Hundreds of former dock workers can sue the government for compensation for asbestos-related illnesses, thanks to court victory this week. The Court of Appeal upheld a High Court test case decision last year that the government is liable to compensate former dock workers.
The test case was brought on behalf of Robert Thompson, a 65-year-old former docker with asbestos-related disease, and Winifred Rice, whose docker husband Edward died in 2000 of mesothelioma, aged 67.
Lawyers for the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) took the case to the Court of Appeal in an attempt to reverse the high court ruling. A successful appeal would have blocked the dockers' compensation claims. The appeal decision will allow hundreds to be compensated by the government instead of them hunting in vain for liable dock employers that no longer exist.
Kevin Johnson, a partner at law firm John Pickering and Partners who acted for Mr Thompson and Mrs Rice, said it is right that the DTI, the government department acting on behalf of former dock labour boards, has been made to take responsibility. 'The Court of Appeal has given former dock workers and their families the lifeline to financial security that they so badly needed,' he said. 'By the time these men become ill through asbestos, they can't trace and pursue many of the private dock companies that employed them. But the dock labour boards knew they were exposing the men to harm by allowing them to work unprotected.'
Source: Risks
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
Designed, Hosted and Maintained by Union Safety Services
|
