British Meso Victims Feel Cheated

September 11, 2006 - Former factory workers at the J W Roberts factory in Armley in Leeds, Britain recently accepted a deal that will award them only twenty percent of the originally agreed upon compensation they were to receive from the plant.  According to an account in NewsInferno, the plaintiffs voted to accept this offer after their attorney told them it was the best deal they could possibly receive.

The J W Roberts plant, closed since 1958, sent asbestos fibers into the air, affecting not only those who worked there but also their families and the individuals who lived near the factory. 

June Hancock of Leeds was the first to file suit against the factory, owned by a U.S. firm, Turner & Newall.  Though the company attempted to stall the trial until after Hancock’s death, she survived long enough to see her precedent-setting compensation come to fruition.  Hancock’s successful suit touched off a chain of additional suits, causing the company to declare bankruptcy in 2001. 

Since that time, a compensation fund has been set up for mesothelioma victims whose disease is linked to the factory, but it contains only enough money to pay out a fraction of the awards due to victims. 

Those who’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma and the families of the stricken – some of whom have already passed away – are angered by the lack of funds available for their compensation.

“T&N have been proven in court to have been responsible for the needless deaths of many innocent people. For that they should pay full compensation and the law should not have allowed this situation to have come about in the first place,” said Kimberley Stubbs. “The agreed reduction in compensation simply adds to the injustice that asbestos victims past and present have faced. It’s not fair, it’s not just – the suffering just goes on and on. T&N should be ashamed…again.”