Swindon, UKAn asbestos ruling in the United Kingdom's Supreme Court provides a damning edict on just how dangerous asbestos can be. "Just having one tiny fiber of asbestos in your lung can lead to asbestosis," says Brigette Chandler, a UK attorney leading a Mesothelioma lawsuit, "and that one tiny fiber might have got there from literally one morning of being exposed to asbestos."
The Western Daily Press of March 10 detailed a court victory for two families that attorneys and health advocates claim will result in a wave of litigation following the groundbreaking rulings in the Supreme Court in that country. Two test cases involving two families have galvanized the issue with regard to asbestos mesothelioma.
One of the two plaintiffs worked as a secretary in a packaging factory. The other plaintiff, identified as Dianne Whitmore, was a Liverpool school pupil in the 1970s. Both were exposed to low levels of asbestos decades ago. Both plaintiffs died.
The Court ruled in the Plaintiff's favor.
"There were heavy imports of asbestos during the 1950s, 60s and 70s," said Chandler, "and it is unfortunate that we have only just started seeing the results in terms of people contracting asbestos-related illnesses…
"Asbestos-related illness will be with us for many years to come."
In the UK, asbestos cancer has become popularly known as "the Swindon disease" because of the high number of workers exposed to asbestos at the Swindon rail yards from the 1950s through the 1980s. But the rail yards are only a drop in the bucket, given the broadening of risk to workers who toiled at car factories and other industrial plants.
Now, with the court having ruled that asbestosis and other asbestos-related disease can occur following a brief and casual contact with asbestos—as the two test cases show—the implications for defendants could be huge. However, that's good news for the innocent victims of asbestos who worked with or were exposed to asbestos fibers without knowing the risks and implications.
Asbestos, long employed in past decades for insulation and other uses, can migrate to the lungs. Once there, asbestos can lay dormant for decades, eventually emerging to trigger asbestos cancer as long as 40 years after exposure. Such exposure is widely held as the sole cause of asbestos mesothelioma.
The UK Supreme Court ruling is expected to foster a groundswell of asbestos claims, now that even brief and casual exposure to asbestos has been shown to be a risk by the highest court in the land.
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