If you get a disease caused by asbestos

Time limits

If you are are told you have an illness caused by asbestos, ask your chest consultant what sort of asbestos disease you have got. Some diseases are more serious than others, and it is important not to become too anxious too soon.

You should also get legal advice quickly, both about compensation you can get through the Courts and about benefits you can get from the Government.

When you are told you have an asbestos disease, you normally have 3 years to start a court action. If you have left it longer than 3 years, this time limit can sometimes be overcome. The quicker court proceedings can be started, the better it is likely to be for you.

You have to be able to show that your employers were to blame. If you have breathed in asbestos dust at work without proper protection during the last 40 years, your employers will probably be at fault. If it was more than 40 years ago, you still have a good case if you were exposed to a lot of dust. In practice, employers will often accept the blame if your solicitor presses ahead with a court action.

You have to remember where you breathed in asbestos dust. This may have been many years ago, and you will have to write down your jobs from starting work, and list those where you came into contact with asbestos.

If you can't remember exposure to asbestos at work, think whether you ever lived with someone who worked with asbestos, or lived near an asbestos factory.

As soon as you are told that you have an asbestos-related condition, or your doctor suspects that you have such a condition, you should claim the appropriate benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

If you have got any asbestos disease except pleural plaques through being employed and coming into contact with asbestos at work, you should apply for industrial injuries disablement benefit, using form BI 100PN. There is more about this later.

At the same time, consider getting compensation from whoever exposed you to asbestos dust, usually your employers, but perhaps the suppliers or manufacturers of asbestos products.

What happens if your employer
is no longer in business?

You may not know whether your employers are still in business, but a solicitor can find out. Even if your employer no longer exists, they can be brought back into existence so that you could still get compensation. It is only worthwhile bringing the company back into existence if you or your solicitor can find out who insured your employer while you worked there. If this cannot be done, you or your solicitor on your behalf should apply for a payment under a Government scheme called the Pneumoconiosis etc (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979. But you will only get such a payment if the Benefits Agency awards you industrial injuries disablement benefit for an asbestos-related condition.

A big problem with old cases is finding out who the employers' liability insurers were. Insurers often will not own up readily years after employment is finished, and they often have to be made to accept responsibility. We have been doing these cases for many years and have the insurance details of many companies.

You do not need to identify all of the employers who exposed you to asbestos. Courts will find that any job which made a significant contribution to the total amount of asbestos dust you breathed in during your working life will have contributed to the disease. You will be compensated in full for some asbestos diseases, even though you can only go against an employer who was responsible for a part of the asbestos dust you have breathed in.

Has your asbestos solicitor told you you don’t have a case? Would you like a second opinion without obligation? 

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0808 144 0959

John Pickering and Partners' Asbestos Brochure can be downloaded here (pdf)

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