Milestone asbestos payout ordered

By REBECCA WALSH

A judge's decision over an asbestos-related death clears the way for hundreds of people to seek lump-sum compensation payments.

District court judge David Ongley has ordered the Accident Compensation Commission to pay compensation of nearly $100,000 to the estate of Auckland man Ross Lehmann.

The 79-year-old retired fitter and welder died in November last year, about a year after being diagnosed with asbestos-related lung cancer.

In 1960, Mr Lehmann helped install a new boiler and piping, covered with asbestos, at the New Zealand Forest Products plant in Penrose.

He became ill more than 40 years later, in 2002.

New Zealand is in the midst of an epidemic of asbestos cancer deaths and thousands of people, particularly men, are expected to die over the next decade.

Despite that it lags behind other countries in dealing with asbestos-related claims.

The Wellington District Court decision is the first lump-sum award for asbestos victims diagnosed after April 1, 2002.

Lawyer Hazel Armstrong said it set a precedent for others diagnosed since then to claim lump-sum compensation.

"There is good reason for assisting these workers - they helped build New Zealand in the 1960s and 1970s," she said.

"Many asbestos victims worked in the construction industry. They were engineers, carpenters, labourers.

"The Government knew that lung cancer was caused by asbestos by the 1960s but chose to allow imports and its use by industry to continue."

Ms Armstrong, who had a "battery" of similar cases, said ACC should tell people with asbestos-related diseases that they were eligible for lump-sum payments.

"Instead ACC has been known to delay assessments and then it is too late because the person has died."

An ACC spokesman said lawyers were studying the decision.

He could not say whether the commission would try to overturn the decision, but it is understood an appeal is likely.

A spokeswoman for ACC Minister Ruth Dyson said she needed to read the decision before commenting.

ACC claimed lump-sum payments applied only when the person suffered injury or exposure after April 1, 2002.

But the lawyer for Mr Lehmann's widow, Dawn, argued lump sums applied from the date of treatment or when the person first became ill.


Mr Lehmann went to his GP in late 2002 with a cough. Tests confirmed he had asbestos-related lung cancer.

ACC accepted his claim in February last year, and in November, after a medical assessment, he was offered an independence allowance of $67.72 a week to compensate for his impairment.

He was not offered a lump-sum payment.

He died four days later.

Dawn Lehmann took the case to review, and in a reserved decision issued this week Judge David Ongley found that the reviewer's decision was correct and dismissed ACC's appeal against it.

Ms Armstrong said Mrs Lehmann, now 80, was not in the best health but was "very pleased" with the decision. A total of $98,500 had been deposited in a lawyer's trust account.

Mr Lehmann's son, John, said his father had worked hard all his life and served in World War II.

He was "disgusted" that his parents had been "put through the hoops" to get something to which they were legally entitled.

John Miller, a Victoria University specialist in ACC law, said the decision was "just". It was wrong to fight to deprive dying people of lump sums.

"It gives them some comfort in their remaining years to think their families are going to be provided for," he said.

He expected hundreds would apply for lump sums but that ACC would appeal against the decision.