General Insurance Spring Seminar

1
General Insurance Spring Seminar

• Friday 21 May 2004, Staple Inn Hall

2
Asbestos A Different Slant

• A paper by Lex Dowie of Simpson Marwick
  Scotlands leading insurance and litigation law
  firm

3
Asbestos Diseases

• Mesothelioma
• Lung Cancer
• Asbestosis
• Pleural Thickening

4
And then there are Pleural Plaques

• No Symptoms
• Non-progressive
• Marker or Stigma
• LUDICROUSLY EXPENSIVE
• 75 of Asbestos claims by number
• 50 of Asbestos claims by cost

5
The Casualties

• American Industry
• American Insurance
• Lloyds of London
• Builders Accident
• Iron Trades Chester Street Insurance Holdings
  Limited In scheme of Arrangement
• Whats left of British Industry?

6
Meso and Plaques as Percentages of All Asbestos
Claims
7
BS Paid Three Years to Dec 2003

• 10.85 million in damages
• 2.75 million in claimant costs
• Costs Damages Meso 11
• Costs Damages Plaques 34

8
Fairchild

• Single Cell
• Guilty Fibre
• Two or more Employers
• Burden of Proof
• House of Lords Bring us something more
  interesting.and reputable too.

9
Joint and several Liability

• Divisible and Indivisible
• Cumulative and Accidental
• Holtby v Brigham Cowan
• Barker v St Gobain
• Patterson v Smiths Dock, Murray v Whessoe
• FSCS and the Pneumoconiosis Regulations

10
Plaques - Philosophical

• What is an Injury?
• What about risk.
• .and anxiety?

11
Plaques Cases

• Fletcher v The Commissioners of Public Works
• Church v MOD
• Sykes v MOD
• Patterson v MOD
• Weir v Harland Wolff
• Shuttleton v Duncan Stewart Co