PLEURAL PLAQUES: employers can be sued over work exposure


Claimant personal injury lawyers have called on the UK government to consider new legislation on damages for pleural plaques after the Scottish Executive amended its own bill on the same subject.



The Scottish bill was revised last week to allow people with pleural plaques - scarring of the membrane that surrounds the lungs - to sue employers if they developed the condition as a result of exposure to asbestos at work.



If passed, it will reverse October's House of Lords ruling that pleural plaques are not in themselves damage and therefore not actionable. While pleural plaques do not cause symptoms, they do signal the presence of asbestos fibres that could trigger life-threatening diseases such as mesothelioma or asbestosis.



Martin Bare, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, said: 'It is wholly wrong that someone in Barrow with pleural plaques doesn't get compensation but someone in Glasgow does. It would be quite proper and highly desirable for Parliament to intervene so that we have consistency across Britain.'



He also condemned referring to people with pleural plaques as the 'worried well' because they will have watched relatives and colleagues - the condition clusters around types of employment, including ports and railway towns - die of mesothelioma or asbestosis.



A spokeswoman for insurer Zurich, one of the defendants which took the test cases to the Lords, said the Lords' judgment should be maintained and that it would run against the rule of law to attempt to overturn it through legislation.



A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman confirmed the secretary of state was carefully considering the issues but was mindful that 'the Law Lords' decision was based on fundamental principles of the law of negligence'.



Anita Rice