Dear Colleagues,

 

With thanks to Jonathan Morgan for drawing my attention to it, colleagues may be interested to see that the Ministry of Justice here in England has finally released its conclusion on the consultation (which closed in late 2008) into whether to intervene to reverse the 2007 decision of the House of Lords ([2007] UKHL 39) that pleural plaques should not be actionable - http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/announcement250210a.htm:

 

“On the basis of medical evidence received during the course of this review, including authoritative reports from the Chief Medical Officer and the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council, we are unable to conclude that the Law Lords’ decision should be overturned at this time or that an open-ended no-fault compensation scheme should be set up. While the current medical evidence is clear that pleural plaques are a marker of exposure to asbestos, and that exposure to asbestos significantly increases the risk of asbestos-related disease, any increased risk of a person with pleural plaques developing an asbestos-related disease arises because of that person’s exposure to asbestos rather than because of the plaques themselves. However, if new medical or other significant evidence were to emerge, the government would obviously reassess the situation.”

 

The Government has therefore decided against legislation, which would have aligned English law with the response to the decision in Scotland (subject to a Private Member’s Bill which is unlikely to pass without Government support before the election). Although one must of course sympathise with the tragic predicament of claimants, it would have been difficult to introduce such reforms in a manner coherent with the rest of the law on damage in tort.

 

Best wishes,

 

James