The UK government is facing increasing pressure to assess the risk of asbestos in schools following a landmark legal victory for the family of a woman who died after “low-level” exposure as a secondary school pupil.
The supreme court upheld a £240,000 compensation claim by Dianne Willmore, 49, in the first case of a former pupil successfully suing a local authority for negligent exposure to the risk of deadly asbestos dust.
While she was a pupil in the 1970’s at the newly built Bowring comprehensive school in Knowsley, she was exposed to asbestos on several occasions.
The supreme court also heard the case of Mrs Enid Costello who was exposed to asbestos at work as a secretary at a packaging factory on Merseyside. She died in 2006, aged 74.
Lawyers for both Mrs Willmore and Costello did not have to prove that mesothelioma was caused by that exposure, only that their employer’s negligence had “materially” increased the risk of mesothelioma.
Lord Justice Sedley said at the court of appeal: “It has to be remembered that where asbestos is involved, a risk of exposure is a risk of harm.”
But the council and Mrs Costello’s lawyers argued there should be a legal level at which that risk is set, and it could only be held liable if it could be proved it was responsible for causing exposure to asbestos that had at least “doubled the risk” of mesothelioma. The seven supreme court justices unanimously dismissed that argument.
