Industry news
Asbestos damage challenge dismissed
Posted Fri, 27 Apr 2012
A pensioner with asbestosis has defeated a legal challenge to the damages he was awarded last year after being exposed to harmful dust in his workplace more than 50 years ago.
David Chandler was diagnosed with the disease in 2007, after working for Uxbridge Flint Brick Company Ltd (UFBC) - later called Cape Building Products Ltd, but now no longer in existence - in Cowley, Middlesex from 1959 to 1962.
The 71-year-old, who now lives in Melbourne, Australia, was awarded £120,000 in damages a year ago after the High Court ruled that the Cape Building Products' parent company, Cape plc, was liable to Mr Chandler. On that occasion, Mr Justice Wyn Williams made the ruling on the basis of the common law concept of assumption of responsibility, and today three Court of Appeal judges dismissed Cape's challenge to that ruling.
Lady Justice Arden, who sat alongside Lord Justice Moses and Lord Justice McFarlane, said: "We understand that this is one of the first cases in which an employee has established at trial liability to him on the part of his employer's parent company, and thus this appeal is of some importance not only to the parties but to other cases."
Copyright Press Association 2012