Friday, May 26, 2006 

Former dock workers have won the right to sue the government for asbestos illnesses.

In a high court judgment released today, the Department for Trade and Industry was held responsible for the health and safety of workers at docks throughout England and Wales in the 1950s and 1960s. The labour boards at the ports, which organised the dockers’ work, were not entitled to pass on all responsibility to the shipping companies that carried the asbestos cargoes, Mr Justice Silber ruled.

The legal challenge was brought by Winifred Rice of Ormskirk, whose husband Edward died of the asbestos cancer mesothelioma in 2000, aged 67, and Robert Thompson, 65, of Scarisbrick, near Southport, who still suffers from a disabling asbestos-related illness.

Commenting on the decision, Mrs Rice said: “The last thing Edward said before he died was that I had to go on with his case. It’s so important that someone takes responsibility for what happened to him – the illness changed him from a healthy 15 stone man to a 6 stone shadow of himself.  All we wanted was for the dock board to hold their hands up and admit they should have protected him“.  Mr Thompson added: “The dock labour board put us in a pen like cattle, we were picked out and sent to unload the asbestos from the ships in the docks.  If we refused to go on the ships we were sacked.  The asbestos was floating around everywhere.  The dock labour board must have known they were sending us into danger."

The claimants are represented by specialist law firm John Pickering and Partners.  Partner Kevin Johnson welcomed the judgment.  “The judge was right to accept that the dock labour boards must bear responsibility for sending dockers to work with asbestos in unsafe conditions without warning or protecting them,” Mr Johnson said.  “This decision will help other dockers and their families to bring claims for compensation without them having to identify individual shipping companies, many of whom no longer exist.”

Lawyers acting for the DTI, which now has responsibility for the former dock labour boards, had defended the case, arguing that the boards were not employers, but that they simply hired and arranged labour for shipping and stevedoring companies.  There was a rough and ready casual labour system involving workers waiting in pens once or twice a day to be selected for work by the companies. It is expected that the judgment will open the way for many other dock workers with asbestos related illnesses to pursue compensation.

For further information please contact:
Kevin Johnson, partner, John Pickering and Partners 0151 227 1214 / 07736 670279  kj@johnpickering.co.uk

James Thompson, partner, John Pickering and Partners 0161 633 6667 / 07976 896224  jt@johnpickering.co.uk

Ruth Davies, partner, John Pickering and Partners 01422 345535 / 07810 502084 rd@johnpickering.co.uk 

www.johnpickering.co.uk

Note for editors

Until 1967, dock workers were employed on a casual basis under the National Dock Labour Board scheme, set up by the government in the late 1940s to organise labour arrangements at ports.  Many dockers unloaded raw asbestos from ships.   Former dockers with asbestos illnesses have found it difficult or impossible to pursue compensation claims because of problems identifying the firms responsible for the asbestos: the workers were often transferred between different shipowning and stevedoring companies daily or weekly, many of the companies are insolvent or have ceased to exist and their insurers cannot be traced or have themselves become insolvent.  The government has, up to now, denied responsibility for the men’s working conditions.