Mesothelioma and the law

Our plain-English summary of Mesothelioma and the law, by A. Samuels (The Medico-legal Journal, 2015).

The study

• Author: A. Samuels
• Journal: The Medico-legal Journal
• Published: 2015;83(1):26-8
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This was a legal commentary, not a scientific study, on UK mesothelioma law. The author stated that mesothelioma causes 3000 UK deaths a year and that inhalation of asbestos dust appears to be its cause, or one of its causes. The author described a court rule making each negligent employer liable for the entire damages. The author also summarized three cases. A university won because it could not have reasonably foreseen the risk in 1974. A man with pleural plaques but no mesothelioma lost his claim. A wife who washed her husband's clothes and developed mesothelioma won hers. The article outlined the Mesothelioma Act 2014, a scheme of last resort. It pays 75% of what a civil action would have awarded and is funded by a levy of 3% of employers' liability insurers' premiums. Some 300 victims or their dependants were estimated to succeed each year, receiving on average some 100,000 (the currency sign is lost from this copy). The article also described changes to "no win no fee" arrangements. The author considered medical experts' role in these cases necessarily limited.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: legal commentary on UK case law and legislation (not a research study)
• Who was studied: No study population; the article discusses UK court cases and statutes concerning people who developed mesothelioma after asbestos exposure
• Exposure: Inhalation of asbestos dust in the workplace and generally; no fiber types are named. One case involved household contact from washing a worker's clothes.
• Main results:
  • Under the special court rule described, each employer that negligently exposed the claimant to asbestos is liable for the entire amount of the damages
  • In Williams v University of Birmingham, the university successfully argued that, given the state of knowledge in 1974, it could not reasonably have foreseen the risk to a student exposed to asbestos-lagged pipes
  • In Grieves v FT Everard and Sons, a claimant with pleural plaques but no mesothelioma lost his claim because he had suffered no foreseeable damage. He had become ill with anxiety and depression.
  • The Mesothelioma Act 2014 scheme is described as a scheme of last resort for victims who cannot obtain compensation from employers or insurers
  • Payments under the scheme to the victim or dependants are 75% of what would have been awarded in a civil action
  • Some 300 victims or their dependants were estimated to succeed each year, receiving on average some 100,000 in payments. The currency sign is lost from this copy of the text.
  • The scheme is funded by a levy on active employers' liability insurers of 3% of premium yield
  • After the 2012 changes to no win no fee arrangements, the Judicial College guide figure for mesothelioma became 77,000 instead of 70,000
  • In Haxton v Phillips Electronics UK Ltd, a widow who developed mesothelioma after washing her husband's clothes succeeded in her claim because the harm was reasonably foreseeable by the employer
• The authors' conclusion: The article states no single overall conclusion. The author's view was that the role and usefulness of medical or scientific experts in mesothelioma cases are necessarily limited.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Mesothelioma.

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