James Hardie Industries must be bracing for a fresh round of damage claims after a court awarded $ 326,000 damages to a motor mechanic diagnosed with Mesothelioma. This deadly lung disease was caused by his work in fitting asbestos brake linings to motor vehicles.
The award will open a whole new round of claims because just about every garage and service station in the country would have been involved in relining brakes - and that would involve grinding and fitting the pads - and blowing out the dust residue with compressed air.
Unfortunately even a single exposure is enough to start the disease process - and that usually takes about twenty years to make an appearance. Asbestos was only recently replaced as a brake lining, hence there is a huge pool of potential claimants waiting in the wings.
This raises the question as to whether James Hardie can survive to meet it's obligations - or whether it will also be a casualty of the product that made it rich !
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