Coal miners’ respiratory disease litigation

On 23 January 1998 Mr Justice Turner delivered his judgement in the longest and probably most expensive personal injury court case ever to take place in Britain, concerning respiratory disease in coal miners. The background to the trial was that many former miners in different parts of the country had initiated actions at common law against British Coal over a period of several years, some as long ago as 1989, claiming damages for occupational respiratory disease. This was disease other than pneumoconiosis for which there has for a long time been an agreed scheme of compensation by British Coal. Since 1992 there has been a “prescribed disease” of chronic bronchitis and emphysema for which Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit is payable but, as with all types of occupational disease, the sufferer is entitled to pursue an action at common law against the employer(s) responsible for causing the disease in addition to claiming benefit from the state.

Solicitors representing different plaintiffs formed a group which acted collectively in the litigation and, at the request of legal representatives from both sides, the court decided that a test case should be heard which it was hoped would establish some general principles by which other cases could be dealt with subsequently. Eight lead cases were selected for the trial, some chosen by each side in the action, partly on grounds of being representative of some common situation and partly on grounds of being considered strong cases with which to illustrate their arguments. Six of the men were alive. Two had died before the case reached trial and actions continued on behalf of their estates.

The trial opened in October 1996 in London and then moved to Sheffield and later Cardiff to hear evidence from former miners about their past working conditions. In January 1997 the …