£950,000 compensation for family of former rail worker who died of mesothelioma

Mr D, born in 1945, worked for British Rail from 1960 until the early '70s, having secured an Electrical Engineering apprenticeship with the help of his uncle. Mr D was based in Doncaster station. To gain experience, he would transfer between departments, one of which was the assembly plant where the locomotives were built.

Mr D recalled being present when his colleagues sprayed the front and rear bulkheads of the locomotives and the driver's cabins with blue asbestos, which he described as having a texture like candyfloss. Once sprayed, Mr D would be tasked with fitting and wiring the control panels, which inevitably meant breaking through dried sprayed asbestos to push wires into place.

Mr D was the primary carer of his wife who suffers with Muscular Dystrophy and is profoundly disabled. She is chair and bed-bound and uses a ventilator at night. He had an adapted vehicle to take her to the seafront and to her various medical appointments. Mrs D also relied on her husband to do the cooking and take care of the house.

Mr D began to experience breathlessness and went to his GP. After undergoing various tests, he was diagnosed with mesothelioma. 

Mr D contacted Andrew Morgan who visited him at home. Andrew quickly secured an admission of liability and an interim payment of £50,000.

Mr D underwent major surgery to remove the part of his lung that was the most affected. He also endured seven cycles of chemotherapy, the side effects of which left him hospitalised and in need of blood transfusion on more than one occasion. Their daughter moved back into the family home to provide care and in his last weeks, Mr D had a Marie Curie Nurse to care for him during the night. Sadly, Mr D died at home in October 2017.

Andrew spent a great deal of time carefully valuing the tricky care element of the claim, which was worth a substantial proportion of the claim, as Mrs D had lost not only her husband but also her main carer. Any settlement needed to take account of Mrs D's future care needs, which would include the cost of a residential carer plus day carers for the rest of Mrs D's life, or else the cost of moving to a nursing care home.

Andrew's initial valuation of the claim stood at just over £1m which was supported by evidence from expert witnesses. Andrew's valuation accounted for the fact that Mrs D's condition was deteriorating and would continue to do so.

Since her husband's death, Mrs D had spent a considerable amount of her own savings to pay for private carers. Andrew therefore secured a further five interim payments of £50,000 each to ensure she had the vital funds needed to continue paying for her care needs.

The Defendant argued that as Mr D was elderly, having died in his early 70's, the level of care he would have provided his wife, had he not contracted mesothelioma, would have decreased as he became more frail and that he would have had to have appointed carers at some point in any case.

Eventually, after intense negotiations and days before issuing court proceedings, Andrew settled the claim for £950,000. This compensates Mrs D for the loss of her husband's pension income and for his support in the past and also funds her care for the rest of her life.

Following settlement, the family said they were pleased that the claim had settled.

Contact us

For further information about mesothelioma compensation claims, please call Andrew Morgan on 0330 460 6737 or email andrew.morgan@fieldfisher.com.

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