Judicial College Guidelines – 16th Edition – Damages for Asbestos-Related Disease
This is my last article on the new (16th Edition) of the Judicial College guidelines, following earlier articles on Work-related Limb Disorders and Noise Induced Hearing Loss. This article covers Asbestos-Related Disease.
What stays the same?
The answer is short – most of it. There is some, but not substantial, change to this part of the JC Guidelines.
Asbestos-Related Disease remains within Sub-Section (C) to Chapter 6 – Injuries to Internal Organs.
What is different?
As is common with the Guidelines in general there is an increase of about 6.56% to take into account inflation. See below for more about the effects of inflation, however.
As is also common with other parts of the guidelines – pre-Simmons v Castle figures have been removed. There is one exception to this within this guideline, however.
The mesothelioma figures are pre-Simmons v Castle being reflective of the typical funding arrangements. Accordingly if there is not a pre-LASPO CFA in place, then the figures for PSLA for mesothelioma need to be increased by 10%.
There is some re-wording of sub-section (d) in relation to Asbestosis and pleural thickening. This is the section regarding disability up to 10% which is clarified to mean the current level of disability. To reflect the rewording, the upper level has in fact lowered (from £36,060 to £35,500), as has the lower level of bracket (c) – for respiratory disability in excess of 10%.
Conclusion
There are no enormous changes to this part of the guidelines, though the basis of the mesothelioma PSLA figure is worth noting.
Likewise the clarification of bracket for respiratory disability of about 10% is useful (now said to be £32,500 – £35,500 for about a 10% disability itself).
Interestingly, the increase in RPI since the September 2021 figures (which the Guidelines reference) and the time of writing (figures for August 2022) is from 308.6 to 345.2. This is a little over 11.1% – greater than the increase for inflation between the 15th and 16th versions of the Guidelines themselves.
