Asbestos compensation news
15/11/2007

Mesothelioma woman awarded damages

A woman who contracted a deadly asbestos-related disease by hugging her father when she was a child has been awarded personal injury compensation.

The mother of three was recently given just nine months to live when doctors diagnosed her with mesothelioma, a fatal cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.

She came into contact with the dangerous substance as a child in the 1960s, when her father worked as a lagger in Plymouth's Devonport Dockyard. He regularly came home from work with asbestos on his clothing and his daughter was then exposed to its harmful effects.

It was this that was identified as the cause of her asbestos-related disease and so she decided to pursue a mesothelioma compensation claim against the Ministry of Defence (MoD), who owned the dockyard at the time.

The MoD acknowledged that the woman's only contact with asbestos was through her father and so settled her personal injury claim with a six-figure sum.