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Dockworkers' Asbestos High Court Victory
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On 19 December 2008 the High Court in Manchester handed down an important decision in favour of the Dockworkers suffering from asbestos related diseases.
The cases were brought against the Department of Business and Enterprise (formerly Department of Trade and Industry) by Winifred Rice on behalf of her husband, Edward who died aged 67 from mesothelioma in 2000, and Mr Robert Thompson, who has diffuse pleural thickening.
Edward Rice and Robert Thompson both worked for Clan Line unloading asbestos in Liverpool in the 1950s and 1960s. It was argued by the Claimants that the Government, which established the National Dock Labour Boards (NDLB) at various ports to organise the dockers’ work, should be liable. The Government now has responsibility for the NDLBs.
In May 2006 the High Court held that the Government had a duty of care for the health and safety of dock workers in the 1950s and 1960s in England and Wales. The Government was not entitled to pass on all responsibility to the shipping companies that carried the asbestos cargos. The Government appealed against the decision but the Court of Appeal unanimously upheld the High Court’s ruling.
The Government continued to fight the case and in November 2008 the case returned to the High Court to decide the extent of the Government’s duty and whether they were in fact in breach of that duty.
The Defendants’ argued that the NDLBs were not employees but they simply hired and arranged labour for the shipping and stevedore companies. The dockers had to crowd into "pens" each morning and compete to be picked to work that day with other men.
The Claimants asserted that the dock workers were compelled to unload shipments of asbestos that came in Hessian bags from South Africa. The Hessian bags easily allowed for clouds of asbestos dust to escape which were subsequently breathed in by those dock workers that handled the bags or were in the immediate vicinity.
Unfortunately due to the passage of time many of the companies which ran the docks are now long since dissolved. Mrs Rice and Mr Thompson, like so many others, struggled to find those responsible for the unsafe conditions and bring them to task.
Mr Justice Silber ruled that the NDLB had breached its duty of care to the dock workers by failing to warn them about the risks of contact with asbestos, to train them about the risks of such contact and to advise them to use respirators.
The Judge further stated that the dangers of asbestos should have been known by 1955 at the latest and, had dockers been told of the hazards then they would have refused to handle the substance.
Mrs Rice, from Ormskirk, was awarded £138,965 and Mr Thompson, 67, of Scarisbrick, near Southport, received £25,329.
This decision paves the way for many other dock workers with asbestos related conditions to pursue compensation without having to identify individual shipping companies, many of whom no longer exist.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article please contact us as you may be entitled to compensation for your asbestos related disease or illness, call 0844 858 3700 or complete our online enquiry form and we will call you back.
This article was written by Helen Stanton, Solicitor in the Industrial Disease Team.
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Phillip Gower
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07/01/2009
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