Friday 29 April 2011

Mesothelioma Solicitor

Choosing a Mesothelioma Solicitor

The key is to start court action quickly.

It should be possible to complete court action within 6 months on behalf of someone suffering from mesothelioma.

It is best to be recommended to a solicitor by someone who knows the solicitor's record than to choose one blindly. You will be better off with a solicitor who specialises in mesothelioma, or at least in asbestos-related disease.

The worst thing your solicitor can do is sit back and wait for insurers to make an offer. If this happens your case will go slowly and you are likely to end up with less compensation than if you had started court action.

Once your case is underway, ask:

	•	Has a court action been started?
	•	If not, when will a court action be started?
	•	Has your solicitor obtained a hearing date for your case?

If you ask your solicitor about progress in your mesothelioma case, you should be told the same day or the next day.

Mesothelioma Award Calculation

Court awards or settlements for mesothelioma are broken down into the headings below, and the totals are then added up. The total award is usually between £100,000 and £200,000, but if the person suffering from mesothelioma is relatively young or has an above average income, it can be a lot more than that.

Your legal charges are not taken out of your court award or settlement.

1. Compensation for pain and suffering: £50,000 - £80,000.

2. Interest on this at 2% from the date court proceedings are sent to your opponents.

3. Loss of earnings: someone with mesothelioma will usually have to give up work.

Assume this is a man. He is entitled to his loss of earnings (or income if he is self- employed). He has to give credit for tax he would have had to pay. If he would have been promoted or would have earned more for other reasons, this is taken into account. He will be awarded his full loss of earnings while he is likely to remain alive.

After the date at which he dies or is likely to die of mesothelioma, he will be entitled to a percentage of the earnings he would have had if he had not developed the disease. He is usually entitled to 50% of his income until his normal retirement age. The number of years is reduced slightly because he gets all the money up front. He will also be entitled to 50% of his likely pension after retirement.

For example, if someone earns £20,000 a year after tax and national insurance, and is likely to die of mesothelioma at the age of 50, and he would normally have worked to 65, he is entitled to 50% of £20,000 x 12 years (because he is getting the money up front). So he is awarded £10,000 x 12 years, which is £120,000. There may be minor adjustments to this.

If, after 65, he would have received a pension of £10,000 a year, he will probably be awarded 50% of this for another 10 years, which adds £50,000.

This is what he would be awarded if he concludes his compensation case in his lifetime.

If the claim is not completed while the man is alive, or is only started after he dies, the compensation is worked out differently.

Assuming he has a wife, and no dependant children, and his wife has an income of £5,000 net a year, then her claim is worked out by adding his net income to hers (£20,000 + £5,000 = £25,000) and calculating two thirds of this (two thirds of £25,000 is £16,665) and then subtracting her income from this total (£16,665 less £5,000 is £11,665). So she is entitled to £11,665 x 12 years, which is £139,980.

If his pension would have been £10,000 a year and her pension would be £5,000 a year, then she will also probably be awarded £4,999 a year for 10 years, which adds almost £50,000.

4. Interest is paid on wages and income already lost by the time the case gets to court from the date the loss started to be suffered.

5. Someone with mesothelioma will not be able to do work in the house and garden, which he or she normally did. The value of this work is compensated as well. If you have to employ a gardener or workman, you can claim for the cost of this.

6. Someone with mesothelioma will need to be looked after by their family. You are entitled to the value of this care, usually at about £7.50 an hour. Someone with mesothelioma usually needs 1,100 to 2,000 hours care over 6 months, or more. If you know that your case will succeed, you can pay for care privately, and recover the reasonable cost of this. Compensation for the value of care provided by the family is usually between £10,000 to £15,000.

7. Someone with mesothelioma can often benefit from having a stair lift, an adapted shower or bathroom, an electric adjustable bed, an electric wheelchair or scooter, and other equipment. If you know that your case will succeed, you can pay for this You can often get a payment on account of £50,000 at an early stage in court action, some of which could be used to pay for care or equipment. Sometimes ground floor accommodation is needed. Taxi fares, additional transport costs, and additional heating costs can be claimed.

8. You are entitled to the cost of private medical care. However, most people with mesothelioma are cared for by the NHS.

9. If someone dies of mesothelioma, his spouse is entitled to a fixed sum of £11,800, called "bereavement" on top of these other types of compensation.

10. If someone dies of mesothelioma, the cost of the funeral is part of the claim.

All these different heads of compensation are added together to make up the full court award or negotiated settlement.

You have to give credit for any money paid to you under the 1979 Act or 2008 Scheme and some other types of state benefit. You do not have to repay these benefits. Your employer deducts these benefits from your award or settlement and repays the benefits to the Department of Work and Pensions at the same time as paying you your compensation. You continue to receive industrial injuries disablement benefit and other benefits after your case has settled.

Your legal charges are paid on top of the compensation you receive.

Mesothelioma Compensation

There are basically 3 sources of compensation.

1. Court action against your employer of the manufacturer of the asbestos.

2. Government benefits: industrial injuries disablement benefit, lump sums under 2 schemes, attendance allowance or disability living allowance, and possibly constant attendance allowance.

3. Trusts set up by asbestos manufacturers or employers: in this country the T&N Asbestos Trustee Company. In the USA, various Trusts set up by American companies that exported asbestos or asbestos products to this country.

Claiming benefits does not prevent you taking court action against your employer. Taking court action against your employer does not prevent you claiming benefits in most cases. Most people do both.

You should take legal advice quickly about compensation through the Courts, and about benefits from the Government.

When you are told you have mesothelioma, you normally have 3 years to start a court action. If someone dies of mesothelioma, their estate or dependants have three years from the death to bring court action. But if you or the family have left it longer than 3 years, this time limit can often be overcome.

If you have breathed in asbestos dust at work without proper protection during the last 45 years, your employers will have been at fault. If it was more than 45 years ago, you still have a good case if you were exposed to substantial dust.

I will investigate getting compensation from whoever exposed you to asbestos dust, usually your employers, but sometimes the suppliers or manufacturers of asbestos products.

I will be able to find out if your employers are still in business.

Even if your employer no longer exists, I can bring them back into existence, if I can find out who insured your employer while you worked there.

You do not need to identify all of the employers who exposed you to asbestos. Any job that made a material contribution to the total amount of asbestos dust you breathed in during your working life will have caused the disease so far as the courts are concerned. Any employer will be liable to compensate you in full.

Causes of mesothelioma

Virtually all mesotheliomas are caused by asbestos.

Blue and brown asbestos are much more potent in causing mesothelioma than white asbestos, but all asbestos is capable of causing mesothelioma. The asbestos that causes the mesothelioma is likely to have been breathed in 10 or more years before symptoms develop.

Usually, if a careful enough history is taken from the patient, he or she will remember some exposure to asbestos. In a very small number of cases, mesothelioma develops after no known asbestos exposure.

It is common for people not to remember at first that they have breathed in asbestos when asked about this at hospital. Or they may not know that materials they worked with contained asbestos. A detailed occupational history has to be taken by someone who will ask the right questions.

There is no “safe” minimum dose of asbestos, including white asbestos (chrysotile), below which you can say there is no risk of mesothelioma. But the risk of mesothelioma increases the more asbestos you have inhaled in your life.

Challenges by the insurance industry and employers to compensation for mesothelioma in the court system have concentrated on causation.

In 2002 insurers argued that because mesothelioma could in theory be caused by just one asbestos fibre, someone who had worked for more than one employer could never prove where that fibre came from. Having lost that argument, insurers are currently arguing that minimal asbestos exposure does not cause mesothelioma.

Treatment of mesothelioma

The type of treatment available depends on your general health, your age, the type of mesothelioma, and the stage the mesothelioma has reached by the time it is diagnosed.

Until a few years ago, treatment of mesothelioma meant managing its symptoms. In some cases, this is still all that can be done.

Managing symptoms usually means removal of the fluid from the lung lining to relieve breathlessness. Fluid is drawn off through a drainage tube. It often comes back, and to prevent this the lining of the lung is sealed with talc. This is called pleurodesis. This can be done at the same time as an open biopsy or video assisted thoracoscopic biopsy, which may be necessary to diagnose mesothelioma. It can also be done through a tube inserted into the chest to drain fluid. This is often followed by radiotherapy to the site of the biopsy wound, to stop the tumour from seeding or spreading. After this, palliative care, which means medication and other measures to relieve symptoms such as pain, breathlessness and loss of appetite, can be offered.

Many doctors now believe that the survival and quality of life of mesothelioma patients may be improved by treating them with surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, or sometimes by a combination of these methods.

The best combination depends on the characteristics of the disease itself, the stage it has reached before it has been diagnosed, and the age and general health of the patient. Surgery is not appropriate in many cases.

If you see statistics about how long mesothelioma patients survive, they may not be directly relevant to you. The statistics are drawn from people who had different types of mesothelioma, who were diagnosed at different stages, and who had different treatments.

Copyright © Anthony Coombs 2006

What is Mesothelioma?

Mesothelioma is a type of cancer, usually in the lining of the lung - the pleura.

More than 90% of mesotheliomas are caused by asbestos.

Mesothelioma can be caused by short periods of exposure to asbestos. You might not have worked with asbestos. People who lived near asbestos factories have developed mesothelioma. Women have developed mesothelioma as a result of washing their husbands' or parents' contaminated work clothes.

The risk of developing mesothelioma depends on the dose of asbestos breathed in over your lifetime. The risk increases with the dose. A thermal insulation engineer or lagger will have had the heaviest type of exposure to all 3 main types of asbestos: blue, brown and white. He has a 1 in 10 risk of developing mesothelioma. But a car mechanic, who blew out brake drums, has a very much lower risk of developing mesothelioma.

The risk is higher the heavier your exposure has been to blue or brown asbestos, but all asbestos is dangerous.

To have caused the disease, the asbestos dust is likely to have been been breathed in at least 10 years before symptoms develop. Dust may have been inhaled as long as 50 or 60 years ago before mesothelioma develops. The average period between first exposure to asbestos and developing the disease is 30-40 years.

Most people who develop mesothelioma do not have asbestosis.

Mesothelioma is not caused by cigarette smoking.

In Britain, more than 2,000 people die each year from mesothelioma. This epidemic will peak within the next 5 to10 years. Even after that, there will be thousands more victims.

In most cases, mesothelioma develops in the pleura. The pleura is the lining between your lung and your rib cage. It has two layers, like an envelope.

Mesothelioma can sometimes develop in your peritoneum, the lining between your bowel and the cavity of your abdomen. Rarely, mesothelioma may attack other parts of the body, such as the lining of the heart (the pericardium).

Very small fibres of asbestos, so small that you cannot see them, are breathed in and penetrate the lungs down to the smallest airways. Some of these fibres reach the lining of the lungs, the pleura. The body has defence mechanisms that surround or expel fibres. But at some point, the defence mechanisms are overwhelmed, and the process of tumour development begins. It is not understood fully why or how this happens.

There are different types of mesothelioma: epithelioid, sarcomatous, and biphasic (a mixture of the first two). The speed at which the disease develops often depends upon which type of mesothelioma it is. Epithelioid mesothelioma is the most common type.

Symptoms of pleural mesothelioma usually begin with breathlessness, or with back or chest pain, caused by a build up of fluid between the two layers of the pleura surrounding the lung. This build up of fluid is called a pleural effusion. This fluid usually has to be drained from the pleural space to relieve the pressure on the lung. The fluid is then tested. This is called cytology. This alone does not usually prove that mesothelioma is present.

Mesothelioma can be difficult to diagnose. There are other causes of pleural thickening and fluid around the lining of the lung. These conditions can be caused by other cancers, or by infections, or persistent inflammation.

A biopsy, sometimes more than one biopsy, has to be done, in order to diagnose mesothelioma. A biopsy involves removing and analysing very small pieces of tissue from the pleura.

There are different types of biopsy: needle biopsy, a needle biopsy guided by CT scan or ultrasound, video assisted thoracoscopic biopsy in which the surgeon looks into the chest through a telescope and takes samples, and an open biopsy whereby the surgeon opens the chest cavity and takes samples under direct vision. The pathologist looks at the tissue under the microscope and performs special tests on the tissue to diagnose mesothelioma.

It can sometimes take weeks, or even months, for doctors to diagnose mesothelioma with certainty.

Patients sometimes develop swelling and discomfort at the wound sites where biopsies have been carried out, or surgery performed. Radiotherapy is often used to prevent the tumour spreading in this way and to treat these symptoms if they occur.

In mesothelioma of the lining of the abdomen (peritoneal mesothelioma), patients have swelling of the abdomen resulting from fluid that accumulates. This fluid is called ascites.

People who die of mesothelioma usually die from complications of the disease in the place it originated, usually the chest, and not from its spread to other parts of the body. The fluid that begins in the pleura is eventually replaced by solid tumour that can cause difficulty breathing, pneumonia or heart problems, as well as pain that requires medication itself.

If someone dies of mesothelioma, there should be an inquest. The coroner must be told immediately, and there will usually be a post-mortem.