£950,000 shipyard asbestos award

Prosecutions and Claims |
12.08.2007

A former shipyard worker has won a £948,565 payout from his employer Swan Hunter after he contracted the deadly asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma. The GMB union believes the High Court award is one of the largest ever for an asbestos illness.

Raymond Shanks, who is now 59, worked at Swan Hunter's Wallsend yard on Tyneside for four years from 1965. As an apprentice electrician, he came into close contact with laggers and others working with asbestos. This was his only exposure to asbestos during his working life.

In 1983, Shanks and his family moved to Australia where he had a successful career as a construction manager. The first signs of mesothelioma emerged in early 2005 when he noticed feeling breathless.

Following his diagnosis, he returned to the UK and sued his former employer for damages. Swan Hunter admitted causing the illness but its insurers disputed the value of the claim.

Although it is difficult to give an accurate prognosis for mesothelioma, doctors estimate he will live until early 2009. He suffers from constant pain in his chest and, while he can still carry out basic daily activities, he can only walk at a "snail's pace". When his son died in 2003, he had promised to help support his two grandchildren, now aged nine and seven.

At the High Court, Judge Hickinbottom awarded Shanks £70,000 general damages for "pain and suffering and loss of amenity", noting that before the onset of "this appalling and inevitably fatal disease" he had been particularly fit and active. He awarded him a further £555,163 for lost earnings, bearing in mind his commitments to his grandchildren. The rest of the award covered claims such as pension losses, and treatment, relocation and care costs.

The full judgment in Raymond Thomas Shanks v Swan Hunter Group plc is available at www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2007/B4.html