Causation Asbestos in UK Law
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Grieves v Everard and Sons and Another and associated claims
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This approach does not seem to me, however, to address the fundamental point that, while the pleural plaques can be said to amount to an injury or a disease, neither the injury nor the disease was in itself harmful. This is not a case where a claim of low value requires the support of other elements to make it actionable. The need for this is due to what the pleural plaques indicate about the extent of the exposure to asbestos.
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Sienkiewicz v Greif (UK) Ltd; Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council v Willmore
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In most cases, indeed possibly in all cases, it is caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibres. The rule in its current form can be stated as follows: when a victim contracts mesothelioma each person who has, in breach of duty, been responsible for exposing the victim to a significant quantity of asbestos dust and thus creating a "material increase in risk" of the victim contracting the disease will be held to be jointly and severally liable for causing the disease.
The expert evidence, given by both medical and epidemiological experts, but based in the case of each, I suspect, on epidemiological data, was that asbestos and cigarette smoke not merely combined cumulatively to cause lung cancer, but that they had a synergistic effect in doing so. This evidence was enough, as I see it, to satisfy the Bonnington test of causation, as the victim had been exposed both to significant quantities of asbestos fibres and to significant cigarette smoke.
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BAI (Run Off) Ltd (in Scheme of Arrangement) v Durham and Others
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In my view, these considerations justify a conclusion that, for the purposes of the insurances, liability for mesothelioma following upon exposure to asbestos created during an insurance period involves a sufficient "weak" or "broad" causal link for the disease to be regarded as "caused" within the insurance period. The risk is no more than an element or condition necessary to establish liability for the mesothelioma.
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Fairchild v Glenhaven Funeral Services Ltd and Others
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It is accepted that the risk of developing a mesothelioma increases in proportion to the quantity of asbestos dust and fibres inhaled: the greater the quantity of dust and fibre inhaled, the greater the risk. But the condition may be caused by a single fibre, or a few fibres, or many fibres: medical opinion holds none of these possibilities to be more probable than any other, and the condition once caused is not aggravated by further exposure.
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Williams (on Behalf of the Estate and Dependants of Michael Williams, Deceased) v University of Birmingham and Another
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To determine that question, it seems to me the judge had to make findings about (1) the actual level of exposure to asbestos fibres to which Mr Williams was exposed; (2) what knowledge the University ought to have had in 1974 about the risks posed by that degree of exposure to asbestos fibres; (3) whether, with that knowledge, it was (or should have been) reasonably foreseeable to the University that, with that level of exposure, Mr Williams was likely to be exposed to asbestos related injury; (4) the reasonable steps that the University ought to have taken in the light of the exposure to asbestos fibres to which Mr Williams was exposed in fact; and (5) whether the University negligently failed to take the necessary reasonable steps.
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Percy Leonard McDonald (Claimant/Appellant) v Department for Communities and Local Government and Another
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It follows that, unless he was exposed to asbestos dust in the general atmosphere, the mesothelioma must have been caused by the dust to which he was exposed at the second respondent's factory. If he was not exposed to asbestos dust in the general atmosphere, causation will have been established in the conventional way.
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The Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 2) Rules 2023
...... (a) a mesothelioma claim or asbestos lung disease claim; . (b) one which includes a claim for clinical ... and . (ii) both breach of duty and causation have been admitted; . (c) a claim for damages in relation to harm, abuse ......
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Sienkiewicz v Greif (UK) Ltd and Willmore v Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council: A Material Contribution to Uncertainty?
In the conjoined cases of Sienkiewicz and Willmore, the Supreme Court decided that the exceptional Fairchild approach to the proof of causation in negligence applied where a mesothelioma victim had......... where a mesothelioma victim had been negligently exposed to asbestos byo nedefe ndantat a level well below unavoid- able environmentalasbestos ... ng the primacy of the common law as go verning the rules of causation in mesothelioma cases, the Supreme Court failed to clarify the scope of ......
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Justifying Exceptions to Proof of Causation in Tort Law
This article defends a set of exceptions to the general rule in tort law that a claimant must prove that a particular defendant's wrongful conduct was a cause of its injury on the balance of probab......... the risk of the claimant’s injury to generate liability in certain contexts, most notably in cases of mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos dust. 6 In these contexts, the claimant succeeds despite it being impossible to prove on the balance of probabilities that the defendant’s wrongful ......
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Factual Causation
...... 6 See Jane Stapleton, 'The Two Explosive Proof- of -Causation Doctrines Central to Asbestos Claims' (2009) 74 Brooklyn L aw Review 1011 (hereafter 'The Two Explosive Proof- of - Causation Doctrines ') . 7 See ......
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Harmful Conduct as the Touchstone of Causation: An Analytical Comparison of Barker v Corus and Julian
...... (1) . The original decision in
Fairchild v Glenhaven Funeral Services . In this case the claimants had been exposed to asbestos dust while working for several employers, including the defendants, and had subsequently developed mesothelioma. The precise mechanism of how one ......
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Strict Liability For Employers In Asbestos Claims?
...... The Defendant admitted its use of asbestos but denied breach of duty of care. It also denied causation, arguing that any occupational exposure to asbestos had been minimal and much less than the background environmental exposure. In order to succeed, ......
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Contributory Negligence In Lung Cancer Claims
...... 20% of his working time was spent in conditions where there was asbestos dust. It was agreed by the parties the Claimant's death was caused by ... Negligence) Act 1945 ('the 1945 Act') is not limited to causation, but also encompasses blameworthiness. The Defendant was under a ......
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Asbestos Update
......A causation based wording is triggered at the time the injured employee is exposed to and inhaled asbestos dust. By contrast, Public Liability ("PL") policies ......
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Low Level Asbestos Exposure
......bystander exposure. However, caution needs to be exercised before. automatically attributing causation for the condition to specific. alleged exposure, rather than taking a close look at environmental,. background exposure. It is particularly difficult ......