News

By Helen Hunt & Michelle Fiddler

INSURANCE companies forced to pay compensation to a Merseyside asbestos victim have won a court battle allowing them to shut the door on further claimants.

Kensington pub landlord Patrick Downey and 10 other test cases went to the high court in a landmark legal battle to allow people diagnosed with plural plaques - an asbestos-related disease which causes scarring of the lungs - to claim thousands of pounds in compensation.

But insurance companies Zurich and Norwich Union challenged the decision and took it to the court of appeal.

Lord Chief Justice Philips, Lord Justice Longmore and Lord Justice Smith, sitting at the court of appeal in London yesterday, overturned the high court decision.

Mr Downey, 61, a former shop fitter living in New Brighton, was exposed to asbestos while working as a labourer during the 70s and 80s.

Now Mr Downey, owner of Downey's pub in Kensington, faces having to hand over the £4,000 he was awarded in May 2005.

Mr Downey's solicitor, Jean Harkin of Liverpool-based Harkin Lloyd solicitors, said: "The decision means that plural plaques is no longer a disease you can get compensation for.

"It has overturned 20 years of law in this country.

"The decision will be devastating for those suffering from plural plaques living with the fear that they will go on to develop future diseases, some of them fatal."

It is now possible that legal representatives for the claimants will take the case to the House of Lords.

Ms Harkin added: "The claimants' solicitors and all the legal teams involved will get together once the judgement has been handed down in final form and make a decision on going to appeal at the House of Lords."

* Plural plaques is the name given to scarring of the lining of the lung caused by asbestos. This form of scarring is benign and does not usually cause any significant symptoms.

Plaques indicate that you have in the past been exposed to asbestos in unprotected conditions and you may have a slightly increased risk of going on to develop a more serious asbestos-related illness in the future.".