A frequently asked question is - who knew what and when about the hazards of asbestos?
Chronology
"Asbestos in the ancient world
Humans have known about and used asbestos for 4000 years. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were familiar with asbestos, and regarded its resistance to flame was as akin to magic. They reserved asbestos for use in religious purposes, such as wicks for the sacred lamps used by the vestal virgins, priestesses of the goddess Vesta, protector of Rome. Asbestos was also used for cremation robes for emperors and other nobles. The Greek geographer Strabo and Pliny the Elder, a Roman historian and naturalist, both wrote about asbestos. Each of them noted that slaves who worked with the material frequently developed a sickness of the lungs.
The explorer Marco Polo traveled to Siberia, and later wrote of a cloth he was shown there that could be thrown into a fire and would not burn nor be consumed. His guides told him that it was woven from a mineral mined in the local mountains.
In the Middle Ages the emperor Charlemagne was believed to have magical powers. He convinced a group of hostile warlords of his powers when he pulled tablecloth from the table, threw it into the fireplace, and then pulled it out, unburned. The cloth was woven of asbestos".
Source: http://www.californiaasbestoslaw.com/about.htm
Asbestos workers strip an asbestos carding machine at British Belting & Asbestos, circa 1920s.
1893 Cape incorporated
1898 H M Factory Inspectorate report. "The evils of asbestos dust have also attracted my attention, a microscopic examination of this material which was made by HM Medical Inspector clearly revealed the sharp, glass-like jagged nature of the particles and where they are allowed to rise and to remain suspended in the air of a room, in any [emphasis added] quantity, the effects have been found to be injurious as might have been expected".
1874. J W Roberts, Armley, Leeds incorporated.
1899 Ferodo. Derbyshire [Turner & Newall acquire most of shares 1925. Tweedale page 7].
1901 Factory and Workshop Act
1903 Newalls Insulation founded.
1911 Cape manufacturing plant Turin
1913 Cape operate factory in Barking, London and mining in Northern Cape SA.
1920 J W Roberts and Turner & Newall merge.
1924 First US workers compensation disability finding for asbestos is upheld by the Massachusetts Industrial Accidents Board.
1924. Nellie Kershaw inquest and claim (Turner & Newall. UK). Also ex-gratia payment to William Hoyle. "Other ex-gratia payments were made to cover solicitor's costs or other expenses. Lump sum ex-gratias at death were relatively rare...". For further detail as to early compensation claims pre 1970s and Turner and Newall see Magic Mineral to Killer Dust. Geoffrey Tweedale 2000 pages 164-174).
1925 Cape acquire mines in Transvaal.
1928 -1934. Dr. Morris Greenberg "Cape Asbestos, Barking 1928-1934" "Abstract. Background The mining of chrysotile began in the province of Quebec in the late 1870s. Twenty years later, while annual exports were still measured in hundreds of tonnes, serious and lethal effects were being reported in England and shortly after in France. In 1913, after a number of years of operating in South Africa, Cape Asbestos Company established a factory in Britain in Barking, Essex. Some 15 years later, in 1929, the local Medical Officer of Health was seeing their asbestotic workers at his Chest Clinic, the local Chest Hospital was investigating them and publishing their findings, and the Coroner began what was to be a long series of inquests. Methods Documents from the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, The Royal School of Mines, Central Library of Imperial College, The Porton and Barking Archives, and documents obtained by legal discovery were utilized in preparing this historical perspective. Results Despite complaints from the local authority, Parliament was assured that there was no special incidence of disease at Cape, Barking, and that its exhaust ventilation was quite up to the general standard and constantly being improved. Reports on the factory environment and information on the health of Cape's workforce that are available for the years 1928-1934, provide a less sanguine view of the situation, as was confirmed by subsequent health reports on its workforce. Conclusions The case of asbestos is considered as a paradigm for the economic considerations that are considered to justify the perpetuation of unsafe and unhealthy occupations, decisions with which medical opinion can be found to concur". (Published 2003).
1929 US lawsuits filed for Anna Pirskowski v Johns-Manville Inc. and ten other claims in Newark Federal Court, USA.
1929 "The Factory Inspectorate and Cape. A question had been put to the Home Secretary on 12th December 1929, asking him whether he was aware of yet another inquest on an employee of an asbestos factory at Barking who had died of asbestos poisoning and whether he was aware that asbestosis is prevalent especially at Barking? The reply prepared for him concluded with the reassuring statement that :"...the investigation did not disclose any special incidence of the disease at the Barking works, where the exhaust ventilation (which is the chief means of prevention) is quite up to the general standard and is constantly being improved." Source Morris Greenberg "Cape Asbestos, Barking 1928-1934”.
1930 HM Factory Inspector "Merewether" report. The UK Court date fixing industry with the "date of knowledge" and "ought to have known" about the hazards of asbestos.
1930 Workman's Compensation (Silicosis and Asbestosis) Act 1930
1931 Asbestos Regulations
1934 Dr Donald Hunter [regarded as the founding father of occupational and industrial disease medicine] reported as describing the Dolbey spraying asbestos process as "murderous". Source: "The doctors and the dockers". Dr M Greenberg. 2004. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15164401
1934 "On the 12th December 1934, Mr Price and Mr Lowe conducted a day long inspection of Cape, Barking as instructed by the Chief Inspector. and reported on 24th December 1934. They found what they described as a number of somewhat serious irregularities, which they presented in considerable detail, including the following observations in a report for whose length they were apologetic. Source M Greenberg. "Cape Asbestos 1928-1934".
1934 "Looking back in the light of present knowledge, it is impossible not to feel that opportunities for discovery and prevention of asbestos disease were badly missed" Thomas Legge, ex-Chief Medical Inspector of Factories, in Industrial Maladies, 1934. Source: from Hebden Bridge web-site. Also: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=2532461&pageindex=1
1937 Factories Act
1937/1942 Asbestosis/ex-gratia payments by Turner & Newall to Edward Butterworth, Mark Rush and John Thompson or surviving family members. (source: "Magic Mineral to Killer Dust". G Tweedale 2000)
1939 (as reported in "Blue Murder" 1989). Research undertaken at Porton Down by Dr D J Thomas and others including Henry Walton, a particle physics expert drafted into team in 1939 to develop a wartime gas mask. The gas mask filter contains blue asbestos "sandwiched between layers of Australian Merino wool". Military gasmask design specification is L.A.G./97.D. Assembly work for the masks is carried out by Boots (Nottingham) and Cape workers (Hebden Mill and Barking).
1940 Bader subcommittee guidelines specifting acceptable levels of dust and techniques to be used in its reduction (Germany) [Proctor see below].
1940 -1942. MEF. Rochester. (TS&P file number 72855/1). Employed Cape Factory, Cable Road, Barking on assembly line for gas mask production. Conveyor system. Sheets of blue asbestos 4x2 inches (4 inches depth) would be placed in a jig and gauged [39?]. White asbestos filters (round inserts) for civilian and blue (oblong inserts) for H M Forces. Worked 69 hours shift work per week. One insert every 30 seconds and thousands produced. The air in factory was like a fog due to asbestos dust and waved hand in front of her face to move the dust. Only wore a mask once in two years. There were only two masks for the factory floor shared among six girls [mask went over nose with straps] Wore her own clothes (including a pinny) and not provided with overalls. As to Cape, Barking factory generally - the size of a tennis court. Room divided in two. White asbestos to one side and blue to the other. In corner of room a machine cutter also creating clouds of dust. Blue dust sometimes in paste and damp form. Inspectors monitored work from Cape [not the Factory Inspectorate?]. 20+ staff employed in weaving room (down stairs). 2-3 floors to factory? Separate buildings/sheds for stores. Canteen and outside large mound where staff sat. Recall of asbestos sacks from South Africa - "Product of". Husband also worked at Cape factory before and after war for ten years mixing asbestos in factory and died from asbestosis
1941. “Nordmann …and Adolf Sorge (a Nazi party member and SS officer) produced the first animal experimental evidence that asbestos could cause lung cancer” (Proctor see below)
1943 “”…the Nazi government became this first to recognise asbestos-induced mesothelioma and lung cancer as compensatable occupational diseases”. [Proctor see below].
1945 The Chief Inspector of Factories "Asbestos insulation aboard ships". A letter to the majority of UK shipyards and ship building industry stating (extracts only) - "Asbestos insulation aboard ships…No person under 18 should be employed in any process giving rise to asbestos dust or in any compartment or enclosed space where such a process is being carried out…The handling of this very dry industrial material presents a serious health risk, which is often the more serious because the work is done in confined spaces...I would however emphasize that while asbestos dust may not have any apparent effects at first experience shows that particularly if the workers are exposed to dust in substantial concentrations serious results are apt to develop later…Asbestos workers should be provided with a mask (Home Office Mark No. 58042) or other approved type”.
1945 "Dr Leonard Williams, officer of health in Barking as to Cape's London factory - "I am of the opinion that [asbestos] is a deadly and dangerous commodity and unless those who are charged with the responsibility of safeguarding the health of people in the industry can give positive assurances that they have now after all these years removed every possible danger, the processing of asbestos, except in so far as it is essential to our national economy, should be barred". [Source: Annual Report of the [Barking] Medical Officer of Health 1945, 23 from G Tweedale "Magic Mineral…" p.283/4]
1946/7 “Telephony. A detailed exposition of the telephone system of the British Post Office”. Herbert and Procter. Page 783. “…cable racks are formed…space between the two floors being sealed and packed with asbestos packing…”.
1948 Building (Safety Health and Welfare) Regulations
1948 "Industries of Barking". Barking Borough Council official brochure ". Includes " Review of the important contribution made by asbestos in industry today". "The Cape Asbestos Company Limited...can proudly review its history and achievements during 54 years of existence...". Cape have "Works" in Barking, Bedford, Hebden Bridge Yorks., Uxbridge, Kentmere, Westmorland; Turin (Italy), Roubaix (France) and Benoni, South Africa and mines in the Cape Province and Northern Transvaal, SA..
1949 Annual Report of Chief Inspector of Factories "...it is very necessary to keep an ever watchful eye for the new use of asbestos in some manufacturing or other process, for example, on ships or buildings where work may be undertaken by someone not fully realizing the necessity of preventing as far as possible the inhalation of asbestos fibre and dust".
Prof. Sir R Doll deceased
1953 Richard Doll et al "Mortality from lung cancer" BJIM
1957 “Turner & Newall, Cape and British Belting & Asbestos joined forces in founding the Asbestosis Research Council” (Tweedale. p.174).
1958 Frederick Legrand v Johns-Manville Inc [US]
1960 Wagner et al "Diffuse pleural mesothelioma and asbestos exposure in the North Western Cape Province" BJIM
1960 Booklet No. 8 "Toxic Substances in Factory Atmospheres"
1960 HMFI report "It was doubtful whether it was safe to assume that any finely divided dust was harmless if inhaled in sufficient quantity over a sufficient period".
1960/1961 The Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Regulations [ see - "Ship building and ship repair". J F Woolaston http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/42/4/203]
1961 Factories Act
1963 (-1971?). [TSP file] BM employed by jewellry company using "Rawplug" containing asbestos.
1965 Newhouse and Thompson "Mesothelioma of the pleura and peritoneum following exposure to asbestos in the London area". BJIM. Includes 83 case reports of mesothelioma arising from London area (including asbestos factories and docks) - includes breakdown into exposure to asbestos for factory workers, laggers and insulators, relatives and in neighbourhood.
1965 Sunday Times "Scientists track down killer dust"" reporting on Newhouse and Thompson findings as to mesothelioma incidence at an East End, London asbestos factory. A seminal publication viewed as bringing asbestos/mesothelioma fully into the public arena.
"...Thereafter, I take 1965 as the definitive "trigger" date when industry and other interested parties ought to have known about smaller amounts of dust causing mesothelioma. As a judge reportedly said, although this may be apocryphal, “The Sunday Times’ article, "Scientists track down killer dust", was read at directors’ breakfast tables...”. Bob Clark, Consulting Engineer.
1965. Meeting of London dockers concerned about health risks when unloading asbestos cargoes with Dr Hunter at London Hospital. Dr Hunter recommends inter alia Siebe Gorman Mark 4 respirators when unloading asbestos cargoes. His recommendations are rejected. Dockers reassured by HM Medical Inspectors there is no risk to their health.
1965 Letters Turner & Newall Ltd/Turner Brothers Asbestos Company Limited to Oceans Shipowners’ Group Joint Committee. Letter John Waddell Turner Bothers 12 August 1965 “… In the short term , it is going to be extremely difficult to get round the rather extreme opinion by Dr Hunter, and now the Dockers have got hold of this they will never let go…You may well be right that there is only one recorded asbestosis case in the T.& N.Group of a man who was never employed on anything except bag handling but I am afraid that this is not very convincing evidence that the handling of dusty bags is not dangerous”. Take up with Mr Dent of Asbestos Research Council?
1966. TGWU letter (17.11) “..it was decided to advise our members working within the Oceans Trades that unless asbestos is carried in bags which are impervious to the escape of dust or in some other containers as would have the same effect, not to handle this commodity…”
1966 Senior Medical Inspector's Advisory Panel (Annual Report 1966) [page 60]."...While such studies are proceeding, the only safe course is to eliminate the escape of asbestos into the air"
1966 Construction (Working Places) Regulations 1966
1967/1968 early UK asbestos court claims Sales v Dicks Asbestos and Insulating Co. Ltd. unreported and Skingsley v Cape Asbestos Co Limited
1967 British Rail commence the removal of asbestos including from train carriages due to fears for passenger safety.
1967. “Inquiry and conclusions of the medical aspects of working cargoes of asbestos by dockers of the Port of London”. “We are fully satisfied as far as the dock industry is concerned that no unacceptable risk at present exists and that provided the currently approved requirements and methods are followed dockers may proceed with confidence in handling of asbestos cargoes”.
1967 “Asbestos and your health” leaflet prepared for dock workers.
1968. “Asbestos stowage makes dockers down tools”. “The Ministry of Labour is studying the problem of the menace of asbestosis among industrial workers. Experimental methods of packing imported asbestos in impermeable sacks are now being tried”.
1968 Br Med J "Effects of Asbestos in Dockyard Workers" Sheers/Templeton
1968 "Asbestos hazards in naval dockyards". Ann Occup Hyg. 1968 Apr;11(2):135–145. [PubMed]; Mackenzie FA, Harries PG.
1968. (January) Cape closes Barking factory (as reported in Skingsley v Cape). But continues to operate in South Africa until 1980s.
1968. Cape provide written guidance as to Asbestolux product use.(later revised)
1968 Skingsley v Cape Asbestos Co Limited. 2 Lloyds Law Reports 201 CA. Court of Appeal case concerning whether Mr S. was out of time ("statute barred" when bringing his claim. The Appeal Court (Lord Denning) ruled he was not statute barred. Mr S. worked at Cape from 1949 - January 1967 [ie until factory closed]. In 1964 he was told he had asbestosis. Other workers also affected and known as "dust cases". "The employers looked after them well. They gave them a day off each week and every man received a disablement pension. He did not regard himself as being entitled to any further compensation. He says he knew of 25-30 others of his workmates who were in receipt of a similar disability pension. He accepted the asbestosis as one of the risks of the job..". After meeting another worker in a pub (who was claiming) he contacted his union who bought a claim. It is not reported as to the eventual result of this claim. Solicitors Pattinson & Brewer [Counsel N Irvine]. First reported UK asbestos compensation case report save 1967 Sales v Dicks Asbestos and Insulating Co. Ltd. (unreported October 19 but referred to in Smith v Central Asbestos 1971 judgment).
1969 Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act. http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hse40.pdf
1969 First US "environmental" claim - "Fetchco" ? [source required]..
1969 Asbestos Regulations
1969 John Pickering UK solicitor brings Cape compensation claims
1970 HMIF Annual Report [1969] "A brief exposure of one month may after a half a century be associated with malignant mesothelioma or death may take place as young as 28 years of age in association with occupational exposure to asbestos".
1970 HMFI TDN 13 "Standards for asbestos dust concentration for use with the Asbestos Regulations 1969"."...the concentration of this material, that is believed to be liable to be dangerous to health, is very small indeed".
Lord Denning
1971 Early UK asbestos court cases. Smith/Dodd & Others v Central Asbestos Co. Limited. Court of Appeal http://law.ato.gov.au/atolaw/view.htm?DocID=JUD%2F*1972*2AllER1135%2F00003
"...In the present case the Defendants [Central Asbestos] were, I am sorry to say, guilty of grave breaches of the regulations. Time after time, from 1953 onwards, the factory inspectors complained and wrote letters to the defendants: but nothing much was done. The conditions were lethal...In 1962 the defendants closed down one plant and made modifications to others. This improved matters. But still the defendants broke the regulations. So much so that in April 1964 , they were summoned before the magistrates. They pleaded guilty and were fined the sums of £75, £75 and £20. Things improved for a bit, but in 1967 the factory inspector was still complaining of breaches. The defendants have since closed down and gone out of business. About time too.…". Extract: judgment 1971 (April) Smith & Others v Central Asbestos Co. Limited. Court of Appeal. Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning. page 211.
1971 Cape factory "pulled down".
1972. "Radiological survey of men exposed to asbestos in naval dockyards". PG Harries. Medical Research Unit, H M Dockyard, Devonport
1973 Monopolies Commission report "Asbestos and certain Asbestos Products". Includes: histories of Turner & Newall, Cape and BBA.
1973 US Appeal Court upholds mesothelioma trial verdict for Clarence Borel v Fibreboard Paper Products Corp.
1973. Pat Kinnersley "The Hazards of work: How to fight them". Pluto Press. London
1974 The Health & Safety at Work Act
1976 "In 1976 fire insulation board accounted for 14,500 tonnes of asbestos fibre in Britain, of which 11,800 tonnes were amosite...Asbestos insulation boards are tending to be replaced by products containing other fibres so that the risk to users should be consequently reduced". Source from HSC - "Asbestos Vol.1: final report of the advisory committee 1979 report p.23/24.
1976 Supalux [non asbestos] product available
1978 "Asbestos dust took 51 years to kill". "A woman who worked for less than a year in 1927, at a former Cape Asbestos factory in Barking, Essex, died this year from the industrial disease asbestosis, a coroner decided yesterday... After the hearing Professor Keith Simpson said "I have known people who only worked in the factory for an afternoon to suffer the disease". [Guardian 12 May]
1978 Cape phase out Asbestolux (containing asbestos)
1978 CEGB “South Eastern Region Pocket Directory”. Listing employees.
1979 Alan Dalton "Asbestos Killer Dust". Section for workers how to use insulation boarding including Asbestolux.
1979 Hebden Mill demolished
1979 Cape sell South African mining operations.
1979 Health & Safety Commission "Asbestos Vol.1: final report of the advisory committee". HMSO.. “…Three companies process nearly all of the raw asbestos in Britain: Turner & Newall Ltd, Cape Industries Limited, and the BBA Group Ltd. Of these Turner & Newall have made products across the whole range in Table 6, while Cape has specialised in friction materials asbestos cement products and thermal and acoustic insulation, and the BBA Group has specialised in friction materials and textiles. Others large users include Eternit Building Products Limited (formerly Atlas Stone Company Ltd) which makes asbestos cement products and a small amount of insulation board…Also information about Cape. "Asbestos insulation boarding tending to be replaced…"
1979 The Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers Compensation Act).
www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2008/uksi_20080650_en_1 -
1980 Asbestolux on company/supplier price lists
1981-1983 [TSP file]. RHP deceased uses Asbestolux when employed by Hornby to make moulds.
1982 "Alice. A Fight for Life". http://www.lkaz.demon.co.uk/ban67.htm#n2. Seminal TV documentary "Alice [Jefferson] was eventually awarded £36,000 from Cape after an original offer of £13,000. However, this was only after the dying woman had been made to attend court". [Source: Tweedale p. 252]. "Cape Asbestos legacy- "Alice Fight For Life" Alice Jefferson interview edits. Part 1 of 2". http://youtu.be/UalvPWdKhqY
1982 (8.8] "Cape's budget for award cases" "Cape Industries, the parent company of the former Cape Asbestos factory in Barking, have earmarked £450,000 for compensation claims..." Barking Advertiser.
1982 "Asbestos. The deadly legacy". "As a child my husband Fred lived in North Street, Barking, about 100 yards from the Cape Asbestos factory. The dust lay everywhere, blanketing the gardens, roofs etc. My husband and his friends used to fill up their Dinky toys and trucks and play at tipping it out of their toy lorries. What I find appalling is that in the evenings the extractor fans on the factory would pump asbestos into the atmosphere like white flour...". Dagenham & Barking Advertiser (August 6)
1984 [Affidavit 1984 H No 1288 RCJ QBD Hill V ICI ] of HM Factory Inspector Mr. Simpson Evans (who was in post in the Devonport Dockyards in the 1940s) stated - “ Trying to adopt the most charitable view towards shipbuilding employers…they must certainly have known or should have known of risk to health from asbestos dust in the air for their employees by 1945”.
1984 July. “Asbestos for the construction worker” Asbestos risks card issued by HSE.1985 UK ban introduced for blue and brown asbestos
1985 UK ban introduced for blue and brown asbestos
1987 Chase Manhattan Bank (Chase) began legal proceedings against T&N ("Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., Plaintiff-appellee, v. Turner & Newall, Plc, Formerly Known As Turner & Newall Ltd., Defendant-third-party-plaintiff-appellant, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Turner Construction Company, third-party-defendants") in the United States. Chase were claiming compensatory and punitive damages from T&N for the hazard created at Chase's corporate headquarters by the presence of spray applicated asbestos fireproofing materials. In the United Kingdom, John Battle had complained to Parliament that securing documents from T&N was causing progress with the Armley victims' cases to stall, with "documents shifted around from one subsidiary to another within the parent group. Lawyers are expected to specify exactly what records they want without knowing what the company holds. Even if they manage to specify particular records, such as reports on the escape of dust from the factory and tested measurements of asbestos levels within the factory or in the surrounding area - even details of the factory's structure and its ventilation system - those documents are either out with the rules of discovery or the reply comes back that the records no longer exist."[15] But as the Chase case progressed, around two million T&N documents, many of which had previously been unseen by British solicitors and historians, were uncovered by the discovery process and research in the US.[12][18] (wikipedia)
1988 (COSHH) Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1987/Uksi_19872115_en_2.htm [wikipedia].
1988 Walker v Port of London Authority. Dock worker widow claim. Tucker J unreported.
1989 "Asbestos in World War II Respirator Canisters (u)." Porton Down Technical Note 1058. "Summary. The majority of British Service and Civilian respirator canisters manufactured just before and during the early years of World War II contained a particulate filter consisting of wool and asbestos in the proportion of about 80% wool and 20% asbestos. In about 1940 the particulate filter was improved by substituting resin-impregnated wool for the asbestos wool..."
1995 (Appeal) First UK environmental mesothelioma claims. Hancock et al v Roberts et al.
1995 Department of Environment Industry Profile "Asbestos manufacturing works"
1995 Professor R Peto describes an "asbestos epidemic" http://www.lkaz.demon.co.uk/ban19.htm
1995 "The Asbestos Hazards Handbook". London Hazards Centre
1997 Proceedings for compensation commenced for SA and Turin workers workers in UK Court.
1999 House of Commons Library. "Asbestos". Research Paper 99/815. www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-081.pdf
1999 UK ban for white asbestos
1999. 266 docker mesothelioma deaths reported (Dr Greenberg).
1999 Proctor “The Nazi war on cancer”. Page 107 >
2000 "Magic mineral to killer dust. Turner & Newall and the asbestos hazard". Geoffrey Tweedale. Oxford University Press.
2000 [20. July] Lubbe and others v Cape PLC [1 WLC 1545]. House of Lords judgment concerning South African miners suing for compensation. "The central issue between the plaintiffs and the defendant in these interlocutory appeals is whether proceedings brought by the plaintiffs against the defendant should be tried in this country or in South Africa. There are at present over 3,000 plaintiffs. Each of them claims damages in one of the 11 writs issued against the defendant between February 1997 and July 1999. All the plaintiffs claim damages for personal injuries (and in some cases death) allegedly suffered as the result of exposure to asbestos and its related products in South Africa. In some cases the exposure is said to have occurred in the course of the plaintiff's employment, in others as a result of living in a contaminated area. The exposure is said to have taken place in different places in South Africa and over varying, but sometimes lengthy, periods of time, ending for claim purposes in 1979..." http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/2000/41.html
2001 Jeromson v Shell Tankers UK and Cherry Tree Machine Co. Ltd judgment. "...in 1951, the difficulties related to and the threats posed by asbestos were sufficiently well-known, and sufficiently uncertain in their extent and effect, for employers to be under a duty to reduce exposure to the greatest extent possible...'
http://www.clearanswers.co.uk/what-we-do/shell-tankers-uk-ltd-vs-betty-irene-jeromson.htm
2002 Fairchild judgment [House of Lords]
www.parliament.the-stationery-office.com/pa/ld200102/ldjudgmt/jd020620/fchild-3.htm
2004 "Cape will always deal responsibly with any claim that comes in. They have all the original documents in a purpose-built archive in Doncaster". Cape PR executive. Guardian.
2002 High Court "Mesothelioma Fast Track" claims procedure and practice note.
2005. Court of Appeal judgment Maguire and Harland & Wolff PLC. CA find that laundering work clothes by wife who contracted mesothelioma prior to 1965 did not give rise to liability as H&W as employer [1961-1965] did not know of the hazards of asbestos until 1965. H&W were among those listed as having been sent the 1945 Chief Inspector of Factories letter - "Asbestos insulation aboard ships".
2006 Control of Asbestos Regulations.
2006 Compensation Act
www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/en/ukpgaen_20060029_en_1
2006. Judgments Rice and Thompson. NDLB [National Dock Labour Board] ought to have known by 1947 “highly probable” that heavy concentrations of asbestos could cause lung cancer. Bingham LJ. Counsel to NDLB said “..much flesh to be put on those bare bones”.
2007 Memorial for Cape asbestos victims, Barking
2007 Cape SA asbestos litigation. "Leigh Day & Co solicitors recover £150,000 for South African victims. Leigh Day & Co. pioneered claims for South African asbestos victims against an American trust fund and recovered compensation exceeding £150,000 for victims of the operations of Cape Plc, a UK-based company, which mined asbestos in South Africa for decades. In June 2003, Leigh Day & Co recovered £10.5m in compensation for South African victims in a case brought directly against Cape Plc in the UK courts. The settlement followed years of litigation and the settlement was reached after Cape reneged on a deal to settle for £21m reached in 2001". Source Leigh Day & Co. website.
2007 "Asbestos Claims. Law, Practice and Procedure". Published by 9 Gough Square chambers
2008 Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) Regulations 2008
www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2008/draft/ukdsi_9780110818603_en_1
2009. Inquest. Docker - London docks. HM Coroner Stears. [TSP file]. Submission for “unlawful killing” verdict rejected. Industrial Disease [narrative] verdict. “Deceased had died from asbestosis caused by occupational exposure to asbestos and that no precautions were taken although it was known for some years that exposure could lead to health problems and death”. Dr Greenberg gave evidence at inquest.
2009 Treasury Solicitor letter and response to letter of claim against HM government for failure to take adequate action to prevent worker deaths - "...[no] private law duty arises on a government to take executive action to prohibit unsafe practices generally..."
2010 Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers Compensation (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations and Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations.
2010 (8 October) Employers' Liability Insurance "Trigger" Litigation judgment
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2010/1096.html&query=Durham+and+v+and+BAI+and+Others&method=boolean
2010. Sienkiewicz v Grief/Knowsley MBC v Willmore. Supreme Court judgments concerning low dose asbestos exposure and mesothelioma.
http://construction.practicallaw.com/1-505-1705?source=relatedcontent
2011 Williams v Univ. Birmingham. Judgment
Chronology updated 10 January 2012
