Landmark UK Case Opens Doors for Asbestos Victims

May 26 , 2006 - The High Court of England has ruled that two former dock workers have the right to sue the government for compensation over asbestos-related illness.  Experts agree that this suit opens the door for hundreds of other dock workers who’ve been sickened by asbestos to file similar claims.

According to an article in the London Times, “the High Court ruled that the Department for Trade and Industry was partly responsible for the health and safety of dockworkers throughout England and Wales in the 1950s and 1960s.”

In addition, Mr. Justice Silber, sitting in London, said that labor boards at the ports, which organized the dockers’ work, “were not entitled to pass on all responsibility to the shipping companies that carried the asbestos cargoes.”  The Department for Trade and Industry has a right to appeal the decision.

This decision to allow the suits was prompted after claims were filed by Mrs. Winifred Rice, whose husband Edward died of mesothelioma in 2000, and Robert Thompson, who continues to suffer from an undisclosed asbestos-related illness.

The Department for Trade and Industry has argued that, technically, the dock board was not an employer but that it merely arranged labor for various shipping companies.  Indeed, many of the employees worked for different shipping companies each day. 

Robert Thompson disagrees with the department’s views.  "The dock labor board put us in a pen like cattle; we were picked out and sent to unload the asbestos from the ships in the docks.  If we refused to go on the ships, we were sacked. The asbestos was floating around everywhere. The dock labor board must have known they were sending us into danger."

The ruling opens the door for any dock worker who can prove an asbestos-related illness to file suit.  Families of workers who have since died of asbestos-related diseases, like Mrs. Rice, will also be able to file for compensation.