I am a solicitor in the Asbestos Diseases Litigation team in Irwin Mitchell’s Birmingham office. My blog will follow two mesothelioma sufferers 'William' and 'John' through the compensation process in real time to show how claims work and to highlight some of the issues that may arise.
At the moment I am gathering evidence to support William and John’s cases as quickly as possible. As soon as I got back to the office after I saw them, I requested an employment history from HM Revenue & Customs.
The employment history shows who has paid a sufferer’s national insurance contributions during each tax year from 1961 onwards. The history is often very helpful in pursuing a case and is one of the very few things you get free from the tax man! The employment history is usually taken as being proof that a worker was employed by the company. In cases where the sufferer was employed by a company that is no longer trading, that can be very useful as no other employment records may exist.
In William’s case, the employment history confirmed that he worked at the former nationalised industry and exactly when he was there.
The employment history was also helpful in John’s case because, in the 1970s and 1980s, he worked for one company which changed hands several times. He had four different employers during that time, although he worked at the same site and in the same job. We were able to use the schedule to piece together exactly who he worked for and when.
John was exposed to asbestos when he worked in that job, although much less heavily than when he worked removing asbestos for another company in the 1960s. Fortunately John does not have to claim against both companies who have exposed him to asbestos. Claiming against two companies can often take more time than claiming against one and John wants me to sort his case out as quickly as possible.
As a result of a piece of legislation called the Compensation Act 2006, if John can prove that he was exposed to asbestos negligently by one of his former employers and show that the exposure caused his mesothelioma, he will be entitled a full compensation payment. For some other conditions like pleural thickening or asbestosis, if John claimed against only one of employers that exposed him to asbestos, he would only recover a proportion of his compensation. The proportion would be determined by how much the employer he claimed against contributed to his overall illness.
John was heavily exposed to asbestos when he worked for the asbestos removal company. We know from other cases how that company operated and who the company’s insurers are. The company which exposed him to asbestos in the 1970s is no longer trading and, had John needed to claim against them as well, it might have taken some time to find out who their insurers were.
The Compensation Act 2006 means that, for sufferers such as John, we can get on with the case as soon as possible without risking delays claiming against several companies.