Our Senior Associate, Laura Wilkinson, was instructed by Mr S shortly after he was diagnosed with asbestosis.

Laura visited Mr S at home and took a detailed witness statement from him outlining his employment history and his only known asbestos exposure whilst employed by South Western Gas Board (“the Board”), which later became British Gas. Mr S had worked on the tools as an apprentice service engineer, service engineer and supervisor between 1958 and 1986. He then went into an office-based role as a service officer where he remained until he was made redundant in 1994.

Circumstances of asbestos exposure

Whilst on the tools, Mr S worked in boiler rooms of commercial buildings and large domestic buildings in and around the Bath area. He carried out a wide range of work that saw him come across asbestos-containing materials, including removing asbestos lagging from water cylinders, cutting asbestos pipes that fed into boilers and water heaters, cutting asbestos sheets to form plinths for boilers, and handling old asbestos gaskets and asbestos rope. This work saw him exposed to often intense levels of asbestos dust over a prolonged period.

Investigations

Laura was able to obtain a witness statement from a former colleague of Mr S. He had made the witness statement in support of his own claim against the Board with another firm of solicitors several years earlier. The details of asbestos exposure within that witness statement corroborated those in Mr S’s witness statement.

Laura discovered that Wales & West Utilities Limited had assumed responsibility for the liabilities of the Board and so a Letter of Claim was sent to them. Their solicitors were then provided with copies of Mr S’s medical records, as well as Mr S’s exposure evidence (and that of his former colleague) and supportive medical evidence from an independent medical expert. The Respiratory Consultant assessed Mr S’s respiratory disability at 20% due to the asbestosis and 5% due to the combined effect of obesity and ischaemic heart disease. Laura pushed the Defendant solicitors for an admission of liability.

Unfortunately, whilst the Defendant solicitors were willing to accept breach of duty, they did not accept that the asbestos exposure suffered by Mr S during his employment was causative of his asbestosis. In other words, medical causation was denied. This was surprising given the intensity and duration of Mr S’s asbestos exposure whilst on the tools. He had not been exposed to asbestos dust elsewhere.

Court proceedings and further evidence

Laura valued the claim and issued Court proceedings in the High Court against Wales & West Utilities Limited.

Whilst waiting for an initial Court hearing, she instructed an Occupational Hygienist to prepare a report commenting on the level of asbestos exposure suffered by Mr S whilst employed by the Defendant and whether such exposure satisfies what is known as the “Helsinki Criteria.” The criteria states that one or more of six factors has to be present to attribute pulmonary fibrosis to asbestos exposure, including “an occupational history of one year’s heavy asbestos exposure or 5 to 10 years of moderate asbestos exposure” or “an estimated cumulative asbestos exposure of at least 25 fibre m/l years”.

The Occupational Hygienist concluded that Mr S had suffered at least 65 fibre m/l years of asbestos exposure with the Defendant and so was supportive of medical causation having been proven. Meanwhile, a court timetable for the exchange of further expert and witness evidence to iron out the issues in the claim was agreed with the Defendant solicitors without the need for a Court hearing. The timetable included permission for the Defendant to obtain a full report from an Occupational Hygienist, having only received a preliminary view based on only some of Mr S’s exposure evidence at that stage.

Settlement

The Defendant solicitor later confirmed that their Occupational Hygienist had reached the same conclusion as Mr S’s Occupational Hygienist and, on that basis, admitted medical causation. A settlement offer was made at the same time. Laura advised Mr S on the same and the offer was rejected. Further settlement offers were exchanged thereafter, resulting in a six-figure settlement.

Mr S said:

“Laura Wilkinson was professional, competent and efficient. Always supportive and patient. My asbestos claim was complex, but she fully explained every issue, ensuring that I understood. In addition, she is very empathetic and a genuinely “nice” person.”