London court asked to rule on asbestos timing
LONDON (Bloomberg) — A London court was asked to decide the point in time that employers incur liability for their workers' exposure to asbestos.
Sufferers of mesothelioma, a lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure, their employers and insurers are seeking a ruling in the test case that began this week so they can work out how to divide more than 30 years of employers' liability claims, said Chris Hill, an insurance lawyer in London, in a telephone interview.
"The question is not whether victims get paid, but which insurer pays," said Hill, who isn't working on the case. "When an employer gets a claim they just forward it on to their insurance company."
The High Court in London will decide whether the company that insured the employer when the employee was exposed to asbestos should pay, or the insurer at the time the employee became sick, Hill said. About 14,000 pleural plaques claims are brought a year in the UK, costing insurers as much as £25 million ($49 million), according to lawyers for victims in an asbestos case decided by the House of Lords in October.
Colin Wynter, a lawyer for a group of families of asbestos-injury victims, opened his argument today and said liability should be triggered upon exposure to asbestos. Any other trigger would be "fraught with difficulties," he said.