The claimant was a wife who had been exposed to asbestos dust when washing the clothes of her husband who had worked with asbestos for the defendants. She died of mesothelioma. His employer appealed an award of damages to her.
Held: Courts must be careful of hindsight. The judge had accepted that there was nothing in the literature to warn of a risk from secondary exposure to asbestos. The alarm as to secondary exposure was not heard until 1965, and before that time, the finding that the risk of injury was forseeable was itself unsustainable. (Mance LJ dissenting)
Judges:
Lord Justice Mance Lord Justice Judge Lord Justice Longmore
Citations:
[2005] EWCA Civ 1, Times 27-Jan-2005, [2005] PIQR P21
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Maguire v Harland and Wolff plc and Another QBD 29-Apr-2004
The claimant was the wife of a former employee of the defendant. She claimed that having cleaned asbestos dust from her husband’s clothes on his return home from work, she had herself suffered asbestosis.
Held: The risks were known at the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Personal Injury
Updated: 27 November 2022; Ref: scu.221753
