Six-figure settlement for family of Kyle Stewart Limited employee

Mr T instructed RWK Goodman shortly following the Covid Pandemic. He had recently been diagnosed with mesothelioma having worked as a carpenter/joiner.

The companies that he worked with at the start of his year were uninsured because Employers Liability Insurance didn’t become compulsory until 1972.

Some of the exposure that Mr T experienced in the early part of his career were not sufficiently high to meet the knowledge of what would have caused illness prior to 1965, so could not be pursued.

Mr T worked for Kyle Stewart Limited from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s as a carpenter and foreman. He worked on a lot of renovation projects and also worked on many Marks & Spencer’s Stores around the London area as part of the company’s maintenance contract with Marks & Spencer’s.

When he came to give his statement, Mr T had developed dementia and while he had a very clear recollection of his early work, struggled to remember the locations of a lot of Marks & Spencer’s stores that he worked in later in his career.

He clearly remembered working alongside lagged pipework in ceiling voids with dust and debris falling on him as he moved the ceiling tiles to open the ceiling voids.

Mr T has worked in a very similar role to his son-in-law and often had conversations with his son-in-law about the work that he was doing. His son-in-law was able to provide evidence about the discussions he had with Mr T coming into contact with asbestos while accessing pipework in the ceiling voids.

After Mr T had passed away, Mrs T remembered very clearly that Mr T had worked in the Marks & Spencer’s Marble Arch Store on Oxford Street and had accessed the ceiling voids there. She clearly remembered him complaining about the traffic on Oxford Street as he drove to and from the store. Mrs T provided a statement which allowed the Court to make an order for a non-party disclosure against Marks & Spencer’s in relation to the Marble Arch Store.

The disclosure showed that when Asbestos Surveys were conducted, there was asbestos dust and debris on the ceiling tiles within the suspended ceilings in the Marble Arch Store, which were at risk of raining dust and debris down on anyone who opened them. This was completely in keeping with Mr T’s evidence about how he came to be exposed to asbestos.

On receipt of the disclosure, the claim was settled by the insurers for Kyle Stewart Limited who agreed to pay Mrs T a six figure sum to compensate for Mr T’s illness and her dependency upon his income.