House of Lords Kills Asbestosis Case
Rothwell v Chemical and Insulating Co Ltd and another; Topping v Bench Town Ltd (formerly Jones Bros Preston Ltd); Johnston v NEI International Combustion Ltd; Grieves v F T Everard & Sons Ltd and another [2007] UKHL 39
HL(E)
17 October 2007
Weekly Law Notes Summary
A person who developed pleural plaques as a result of having been negligently exposed to asbestos in the course of his employment, could not sue his employers for negligence because the presence of pleural plaques did not constitute actionable damage. Although pleural plaques indicated the presence in the lungs and pleura of asbestos fibres which could cause other life-threatening diseases such as asbestosis or mesothelioma, the risk of future illness was not actionable, neither was a psychiatric illness caused by the contemplation of that risk, and those three factors could not be aggregated so as to give rise to a cause of action.