Lawyer: New requirements will cause more heartache for Mesothelioma victims
03/11/2009
A new directive from the HM Revenue and Customs could cause more heartache for families affected by the effects of Mesothelioma, a leading lawyer has claimed.
It is believed that the new requirements, which will restrict access to company employment records, will make it even more difficult for affected families to establish whether they have a legal claim against former employers who may have exposed them to asbestos.
A mesothelioma claim specialist, Roger Maddocks, partner at specialist law firm Irwin Mitchell has said the delays in establishing cases is causing even more heartache for families who are already dealing with the trauma of grieving for lost loved ones.
He said: “Mesothelioma is fast-acting and fatal – it kills thousands of people in the UK every year. In the majority of cases, the victims of the disease have been exposed to asbestos negligently by their former employers.
“But now the HMRC is causing unnecessary delays to the process. These people, who have lost family members in such a devastating way, are going through enough as it is and the faster these new requirements are scrapped the better.
“By identifying where or when asbestos exposure could have taken place, through employment history, claims can be speeded up in the early stages,” Mr. Maddocks said:
“Employment records are a crucial element of Mesothelioma claims and we need to establish as quickly as possible which of the victims former employers played a part in risking their lives,”
The HMRC now refuses to grant access to these records to anyone other than the legal executor or court appointed administrator. This will slow down any claims as vital information could be missing.
Mr. Maddocks has called on the authorities who regulate the HMRC to change the way that information is handled back to its previous state to prevent longer cases for bereaved families.
“There has never been a problem accessing these details before, but this new policy of the HMRC’s will impact on countless others around the region and the rest of the UK.
“Without exact records of where victim worked, and when, it will be next to impossible to build a case. It has always been difficult enough to build up a picture of someone’s employment history, especially as we are usually talking about something that happened decades ago.
“The HMRC will now not make information available to anyone other than a legal executor or a court-appointed administrator at a stage when we don’t even know if it will be possible to pursue a claim.”
Mesothelioma can take up to 40 years to develop and cause symptoms after being exposed to asbestos fibres.
Mr. Maddocks is currently researching a claim on behalf of Denise Hudson who lost her mother to Mesothelioma in 2008, years after asbestos exposure.
It is believed that Denise’s mother, Ellen Anderson, contracted Mesothelioma after exposure to dust on her husband’s work clothing which was worn at his workplace of a shipyard in Wearside.
Mr. Anderson died in 1973, aged 34, but it took over 30 years for the symptoms of Mesothelioma to develop in the widowed Mrs. Anderson, who passed away aged 66.
In order to progress with the mesothelioma claim, Mr. Maddocks would need detailed employment records of Mr. Anderson to establish the responsibility of a previous employer for the third-party exposure of asbestos to Mrs. Anderson.
“Mrs. Hudson lost one parent at a tragically young age and has now had the other taken from her too. Nothing can compensate her for what she has lost but a compensation payment may provide a small crumb of comfort to her,” he added.
Mrs. Hudson spoke about her hard working mother and the cruelty with which Mesothelioma had affected so much of her mother’s life.
“She had a hard life. She was a fabulous woman, really great – my father died so long ago and she worked all her life to support three children,” she said.
“What happened to her came as a complete shock. She was diagnosed with the disease and then died within the year. It was a terribly cruel way to have her taken from us.
“She worked as a cashier at the local supermarket – there is no way she could have been exposed to asbestos in any way other that via my father’s overalls.
“My father worked really hard but always had a smile on his face. Sunday afternoons were the best - my dad would sit in his favourite chair and we’d watch the TV, like Black Beauty, together and then go out to play.
“It’s disgusting what he and so many other people had to go through at work back then.”
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