Pleural Plaques Fudge
The Ministry of Justice has announced that it has no intention of reversing the house of Lords decision in Rothwell v Chemical and Insulating Co Ltd. In that case the House of Lords denied the long-standing right to compensation of those suffering from pleural plaque on what many regard as questionable legal grounds. In Scotland the decision was promptly reversed. After 18 months deliberation The Ministry of Justice propose what can only be seen as a political compromise whereby those whose claims were lodged but not resolved by the date of the House of Lords decision in October 2007 will receive a fixed payment of £5,000, whereas those whose claims were lodged after that date will receive nothing. This proposal can be best described as arbitrary. The ultimate beneficiaries will only be the insurance companies.
There is better news from the Ministry of Justice with the proposed creation of the Employers Liability Tracing Office, the purpose of which will be to help people place insurers where negligent employer has gone out of business. I hope that the role of the office will extend to tracing insurers in relation to all the long tail industrial disease and not just those related to asbestos. It also is hoped that it will be properly funded and will actually be of benefit rather than a bureaucratic hindrance. It should as a initial step require insurance to register employers liability insurance details on a central database and have as a long-term objective the recording of all historical policies for at least the last 30 years.
A Department of Work and P{ensions consultation has already begun work on the creation of employers liability insurance
to act as a fund of last resort and sufferers of asbestos related disease were unable to trace insurance records needed to claim compensation. It is not clear to me why the fund would be limited to meeting claims for asbestos related disease only. There are numerous other conditions in relation to which insurers fail to meet their liabilities as a result of their own poor record-keeping. It is suggested that it would be wrong to require insurance to contribute towards the fund of last resort because the burden would fall upon today’s more responsible employers. However the failure here lies not with the historic employers, most of whom had insurance, but would the insurer’s own poor record-keeping from which they now benefit every time a claimant with a good claim is denied compensation because the employer has gone and the insurer fails to come forward in spite of being circulated by the ABI because they simply cannot find the policy. In any other context it would be regarded as a national disgrace.
It is also good news that are likely to be increased up front payments from mesothelioma and sufferers and their dependants.
The proposal to simplify the bringing of claims against insurers of companies which no longer exist in the be third parties (writes against insurers) Bill now before Parliament will also be of great assistance to sufferers of longtail diseases and their lawyers.
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