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Passive Smoking Compensation Claims

If you or a member of your family have become ill as a result of passive smoking through the negligence of an employer, you may be entitled to make a personal injury compensation claim. Contact The Legal Line for specialist advice and assistance on 0800 0328511 or by completing an online compensation claim enquiry form.

Passive Smoking
Illnesses Caused by Passive Smoking
Environmental Tobacco Smoke at Work
Passive Smoking Compensation Claims
Compensation

How Much Compensation am I Likely to Receive?
Specialist Industrial Disease Lawyers

Passive Smoking

Passive smoking is the term used to describe exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), when a person is in the vicinity of a smoker or smokers of cigarettes and inhales their smoke involuntarily. Passive smoking has been linked to a number of illnesses and conditions, including serious, life-threatening diseases like lung cancer and heart disease.

As tobacco smoke is a known health hazard and contains carcinogenic (cancer causing) substances, a ban on smoking in workplaces and enclosed public places such as restaurants and public houses has recently come into force.

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Illnesses Caused by Passive Smoking

Passive smoking is known to cause a range of effects. Some of these are more minor, for example eye irritation, headaches nausea and sore throats, all of which can occur with only a few minutes of exposure to ETS.

In addition to the immediate effects that are caused by short term exposure, various illnesses have been linked to long term passive smoking. Examples include:

• Lung Cancer
• Exacerbation of Asthma
• Increased Risk of Coronary Heart Disease
• Nasal Cancer
• Bronchitis and Emphysema
• Ear Infections in Children
• Other Respiratory Diseases and Complaints

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Environmental Tobacco Smoke at Work

Employers have a responsibility to protect their employees from exposure to health hazards. There are regulations in place which employers have to comply with known as the COSHH, or Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1988. If your employer has failed to take sufficient precautions to prevent harm to you and you develop an illness related to passive smoking, you may be entitled to make an injury claim for compensation.

Tobacco smoke is known to be harmful, so employers should take measures to ensure that their employees do not have to work in a smoky environment, by providing adequate ventilation and separate facilities for smokers, or by banning smoking in the workplace altogether.  As a result of the new smoking regulations this is now automatic in most workplaces, however there are some exceptions to the ban, namely premises that can be considered a 'home'.  This includes:

• Prisons
• Residential Care Homes
• Hospices
• Some Mental Health Units

If you work in this type of workplace, your employer should take all reasonable steps to ensure that you are not exposed to ETS.

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Passive Smoking Compensation Claims

If your employer does not protect you from exposure to hazardous substances at work, they could be held responsible for any illness or injury that you suffer as a result. In order to make a compensation claim for illnesses caused by passive smoking, you must be able to prove the following:

1. You have an illness that can be caused by exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.
2. Your work environment posed a real risk of causing this type of illness and that your employer knew (or ought to have known) that you were exposed to this risk.
3. Knowing the risk of harm that you were exposed to, your employer failed to take sufficient measures to prevent the risk of this type of illness or reduce it as far as is reasonably practicable.
4. The illness you are suffering was caused by exposure to ETS at work, or this materially contributed to your illness, and that this exposure was caused by your employer’s breach of duty.
5. You are within the time limitation period to make a personal injury claim.

In every case, medical evidence will be required. Detailed expert evidence is often also required in disease cases to show that the condition suffered by a claimant was caused by exposure to a particular substance.

In any personal injury claim it is necessary to show that the person you are making a claim against owed you a duty of care, that they breached that duty of care (were negligent), and that the injury you sustained was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of that negligence. It is therefore important to seek the advice of a specialist personal injury lawyer, who can help you to pursue your claim effectively.

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Compensation

There are two elements to a compensation award. The first, called general damages, is for the pain and suffering you may have gone through and any loss of amenity (perhaps an inability to play sports, take your children to school, look after your garden). The award for loss of amenity can be for a short period after you develop an illness related to passive smoking, or for ever if that is what the medical evidence supports.

Whereas the first element of compensation cannot make you better and can only really apologise, the second element of a compensation award, for your losses and expenses,
is known as special damages and aims to put you back in a position financially as if the accident had never occurred. It is important to keep receipts for any expenditure you have related to the illness so that these can be reclaimed.

In serious cases, where a person may no longer be able to continue their employment, this can be taken into account. Costs for care, equipment, transport and housing modifications can also be factored into the calculations. If you are still able to work but not in the same role as before an extra amount may be awarded for loss of ‘congenial employment’, particularly if you held a public service role such as a doctor or police officer. A court can also make a financial award to recognise that your prospects on the open labour market may be limited.

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How Much Compensation am I Likely to Receive?

The details of each case are assessed individually, as a number of factors affect the amount of compensation awarded in a industrial disease claim. These include the severity of the condition, any loss of earnings and other losses related to the illness (for example medical expenses and care costs).

Awards made in previous claims of a similar nature are used as a guideline however, together with general guidelines from the Judicial Studies Board. Our ‘How Much’ section provides further information and you can find details of previous settled cases in our news and success stories sections.

 

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Specialist Industrial Disease Lawyers

The Legal Line lawyers are specialists in all areas of personal injury and industrial disease and can therefore provide expert claim advice, guidance and assistance.

An in depth report on passive smoking was written for the Royal College of Physicians by one of our specialist occupational disease solicitors.  Follow this link to read chapter 8 (Going Smoke Free) of this article.

If you believe that you have developed an illness as a result of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in your workplace, they can assist you in making a compensation claim in respect of the current and future effects that this has on your life and work.

It may also be possible to make a posthumous claim in respect of a relative that has died due to passive smoking.

For further information on our lawyers’ involvement in previous passive smoking cases, see the following stories in our case history and news section:

• Passive Smoking – Bland v Stockport MBC- A case where our lawyers recovered compensation for an office worker exposed to large amounts of ciagrette smoke at work.  She developed persistent coughs, catarhh and sore throats and was awarded £15,000.
• Flood of Smoke Lawsuits to Come - News article on the proposed smoking ban and how this may enable more people to claim compensation for illness caused by passive smoking.
• England Bans Public Smoking - Our article providing information on the blanket ban on public smoking which began in July 2007.
• Successful Passive Smoking Compensation Claim - News article regarding a claim our lawyers made on behalf of an employee whose asthma was exacerbated by passive smoking at work.

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