Between 1974 and 1983 KK was employed as a joiner by Vic Hallam Ltd. For one month around 1980 they sent him to work at a farm where he had to cut large quantities of asbestos sheets with a skill saw. This caused him to contract mesothelioma at the age of 75 in 2007. He died from the disease in April 2008. The Defendant admitted liability.
His wife suffered from early dementia. He had two grown up daughters, B and J, both of whom worked as teachers and had two daughters each of their own, aged between two and nine. KK provided a valuable service in term-time by driving his granddaughters to and from their schools and caring for them after school until B and J were able to collect them.
Initially the Defendant argued that B and J were not entitled to any compensation at all for the loss of their father’s help with his grandchildren. There was no legal precedent for this. At the High Court hearing in October, however, the judge accepted that B and J were each entitled to £2,000 per year and awarded them £27,960 for loss of their father’s help with the children. The judge’s total award for all the heads of loss was £109,357, much more than the £80,000 that the Defendant had offered shortly before the hearing.
Rodney Nelson-Jones completed the case within nine months of first being contacted.