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Government Consultation Response Lets Down Mesothelioma Victims
The Government has finally produced its long-awaited response to their own official consultation concerning damages. The government’s response comes over 2 years after the date for final submissions to the consultation, “The Law on Damages.” Click here to follow a link to the Government’s response. The response will be seen by many as a massive disappointment and missed chance to reform this area for the better. The response will particularly disappoint asbestos sufferers and lobbyists due to it’s failure to help mesothelioma sufferers who face an agonizing choice about whether to resolve claims in their lifetimes or not. This is an issue about which John Pickering and Partners LLP have long campaigned to change the law. Please follow this link for details of the presentation that we made to the All Party Parliamentary Select Committee on Occupational Disease. The government clearly recognises that mesothelioma sufferers face difficulty “…in deciding whether to pursue a claim to secure compensation before their death, or to postpone the claim to enable their dependents to bring a claim under the FAA” [a posthumous claim]. The government then goes on to set out the options for reform available to them, which includes “…a special provision limited to mesothelioma claims to permit recovery of FAA damages in claims concluded in life and/or legislative removal of the different approaches to calculating damages for the “lost years” in claims concluded during the lifetime of the terminally ill, as compared with calculating damages for loss of dependency in claims pursued after death.” Unfortunately, this is as far as the government takes matters and state that they “…would welcome views on the extent to which difficulties arise in this area, and on the respective merits of these options and any alternative approaches that could be taken.” The government’s lacklustre and abdicative efforts are all the more perplexing given that they have already received detailed responses from interested parties following both this Consultation and the earlier detailed consultation carried out by the DWP into the mesothelioma claims handling process. This surely begs the question, how much consultation is actually needed before action will be taken? Following the recent government disappointment concerning pleural plaques, asbestos sufferers and campaigners will understandably see this as yet another let down from a government that promises much but delivers little. Further information: Kevin Johnson, Solicitor Telephone: 0151 227 1215 Contact us to find out more about your entitlement to claim compensation if you have been diagnosed with mesothelioma or another asbestos related condition. Notes John Pickering and Partners LLP- Specialist mesothelioma compensation solicitors We are a specialist personal injury law firm. We have been handling claims for industrial disease for over 30 years. Most of our work involves acting for asbestos disease victims. We only act for the sufferers of asbestos diseases and never act for the organisations that caused the asbestos exposure or their insurers. We have an ethical approach and pledge to donate 10% of our net profits every year to good causes that help asbestos sufferers. Click here to find out about our donations to good causes. We have also been involved in most of the landmark judgments that shape this area of law. Find out more about us or find out about our reported cases. We are on the panels of several asbestos support groups and are ranked highly by legal guides. Click here to find out more about what others have said about us. John Pickering and Partners LLP is a niche legal practice that has represented Claimants in the leading asbestos "test cases" in the last ten years. The firm represented Sylvia Barker in Barker v Corus (UK) Plc, a case that highlighted the legal tactics of employers and insurers trying to cut back their compensation liabilities to mesothelioma sufferers, and which prompted the amendment of the Compensation Act 2006 to ensure full compensation for mesothelioma claims. The firm represented two of the three Claimants in the Fairchild appeal, in which the insurance industry tried unsuccessfully to block compensation altogether for mesothelioma sufferers unable to identify which of two or more sources of asbestos exposure had caused their illness. The firm represented Alice Jefferson, a mesothelioma sufferer, whose illness and compensation claim against Cape Asbestos were featured in the important documentary "Alice: A Fight For Life." Shown by Yorkshire Television in July 1982, the programme was an important catalyst for legal change and public awareness of the plight of mesothelioma and other asbestos disease sufferers and a prompt for important legal reform. Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that affects the lining of certain bodily organs. It most commonly affects the lining of the lungs (the pleura) but it can affect other areas including organs in the abdominal cavity (the peritoneum). According to the British Lung Foundation, more than 2,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma every year in the UK and there is one mesothelioma death every five hours. The number of deaths from mesothelioma increased from 153 in 1968 to 1,969 in 2004 and is expected to peak at 2,450 between 2011 and 2015. The British Lung Foundation, supported by John Pickering and Partners LLP, launched the first Action Mesothelioma Day on 27th February 2006, to raise awareness about mesothelioma, to improve the treatment and care of mesothelioma patients, and to lobby for better funding for research into mesothelioma and for the protection and edcation of people working with asbestos. |
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