Sienkiewicz v Grief UK Ltd, [2011] UKSC 10
Citation:Sienkiewicz v Grief UK Ltd, [2011] UKSC 10
Rule of thumb:How is joint and several liability worked out in industrial disease mesothelioma cases? For most industrial diseases cases, the total time the person has worked in each organisation as has to be worked out as a % of their total time exposed across all organisations, and that is the % of the damages they owe, however for mesothelioma cases it is pure joint & several liability which applies.
Judgment:
In this case the Court held that where a material increase of risk of contracting mesothelioma - a lung disease, then the Court should award the party full damages without the need to call in other defenders. This is a statutory exception to normal material risk and proportionate liability cases. In short, for most industrial diseases case, all the defenders have to be called and they are all proportionately liable, but there is a statutory exception for this with the disease mesothelioma. The Court further confirmed that where enough people in a place contract a disease or injury from exposure to a substance, than by the rule of epidemiology this can be enough to establish a connection and liability.
Ratio-decidendi:
‘The 2006 Act, coupled with Fairchild, has draconian consequences for an employer who has been responsible for only a small proportion of the overall exposure of a claimant to asbestos dust, or his insurers, but it would be wrong to have regard to that fact when considering the issues raised by these appeals. Parliament has willed it so’, Lord Phillips. The Court also stated that with the de minimis rule it is perennially to measure the exact percentage contribution made to things, "I doubt whether it is ever possible to define in quantitative terms what for the purposes of the application of any principle of law is de minimis. This must be a question for the judge on the facts of the particular case... In the case of mesothelioma, a stage must be reached at which, even allowing for the possibility that exposure to asbestos can have a cumulative effect, a particular exposure is too insignificant to be taken into account, having regard to the overall exposure that has taken place’, Lord Phillips, ‘In other words, since, by its very nature, the statistical evidence does not deal with the individual case, something more will be required before the Court will be able to reach a conclusion, on the balance of probability, as to what happened in that case. For example, where there is a strong epidemiological association between a drug and some condition which could have been caused in some other way, that evidence along with evidence that the claimant developed the condition immediately after taking the drug may well be enough to allow the Judge to conclude, on the balance of probability, that it was the drug that caused the claimant’s condition’
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.