Disease insurance law

We successfully defended an occupational asthma claim, where the claimant, a leisure assistant with complex mental health issues, alleged that she had been exposed to liquid sodium hypochlorite and that the client had failed to provide her with effective personal protective equipment on two occasions. Her alleged symptoms were such that she ceased working and became housebound because of increased level of anxiety. We successfully persuaded the court that even if not defective the personal protective equipment would not have made a difference. Further, when faced with the claimant’s application for additional expert evidence from an occupational hygienist, this was successfully resisted whilst at the same time securing late permission for our own psychiatric evidence. This was an important milestone for our client as at first directions the court refused to permit our client to seek their own expert report. The claimant received no payment after a long battle.

A claim by a living mesothelioma claimant where a former police constable was negligently exposed to asbestos during the course of his employment. The case put to the police authority was that there had been exposure to significant levels of asbestos dust in the locker room and basement and that during the course of refurbishments he and his fellow officers were negligently exposed to significant levels of dust because of inadequate safety precautions. The claimant had been based at a number of stations over his period of employment. The claimant had used media to track down witnesses and secure damning supporting statements from fellow officers, which if unchallenged confirmed that exposure was likely to be held to be significant. The police authority were unable to offer rebuttal evidence and the documentary evidence was incomplete. With medical causation established, we changed strategy swiftly to explaining the risks to the police authority and ensuring that they had a clear understanding of the evidential difficulties with particular reference to the 'show cause' requirements. We limited outlay and costs by interrogation of the quantum evidence and effective Part 35 questions, drawing out concessions resulting in a satisfactory outcome and compromise.

Acting on behalf of two diverse manufacturing clients, concerning the management of employers’ liability NIHL. We worked closely with our clients to collate and preserve, locally where necessary, numerous historical noise surveys, noise policies, health and safety minutes, together with global and local awareness data. The preservation and ease of access to this bank of evidence has been central to maintaining robust defences, or filtering out at a very early stage the claims that need to be settled. This level of understanding of historical working practices and document retention, not only means that we are considered to be a ready source of information for any new insurer for the clients, but also ensures that we have removed repeat costs from the litigation process by the use of standardised and adaptable disclosure lists, readily accessible from our case management system.

We defended a series of 25 personal injury claims from machine operatives at a factory; all alleging respiratory symptoms ranging from coughs to asthma and extrinsic allergic alveolitis as a result of exposure to metalworking fluids in the workplace. The combined value of these relatively modest claims was approximately £375,000. The civil claims management was complicated by the involvement of the HSE, who had already issued improvement notices, and also the alleged linked death of one employee, requiring attendance at the inquest to represent the insured. Specialist disease lawyers assessed the collated evidence to consider factual causation, medical causation and limitation issues. As the allegations spanned a number of years, we plotted the mutual liability issues against timelines of machine improvement, nature and extent of extraction systems and coolant contamination. A strategic decision was taken to instruct a single medical expert for all claimants, to advise on causation and the extent to which claimants’ symptoms were genuine and related to metalworking fluid exposure, and those which were not. This ensured consistency of approach, close working and control on disbursement spend. As the position on factual and medical causation crystalized, a great deal of headway was made by conducting a series of claims meetings over several days at the claimant solicitor’s premises. To drive home that the aim was to achieve settlement as a whole we encouraged the attendance of employer representatives. This concerted approach achieved considerable total cost savings for those claims where an award was merited.