Electrician, 60, who unwittingly poisoned his wife with asbestos dust on his moustache while they kissed 40 years ago sues Vauxhall Motors for £1m after her death to lung cancer

An electrician who says he unwittingly poisoned his wife with deadly asbestos dust while they hugged and kissed as a young couple 40 years ago is now suing for £1 million over her death.

Lydia Carey's grieving husband, John, 60, says that, from the day he started courting her in 1976, she breathed in asbestos fibres secreted on his work overalls and even in his hair, moustache and sideburns.

He escaped unharmed, but Lydia died, aged just 60, on November 27 this year after losing her fight against asbestos-linked lung cancer, the High Court heard.

Deadly fibres were transmitted from husband to wife during the habitual rituals of daily life, said Mr Carey's barrister, John-Paul Swoboda.

'All through the period she and John Carey would hug and kiss upon seeing one another,' he told Judge Karen Walden-Smith.

Mr Swoboda told the court fibres lay dormant in Lydia Carey's body for 40 years before triggering the cancer that killed her.

She was diagnosed in October 2017 with mesothelioma, an incurable cancer notorious for the agony suffered by its victims, and was just 60 when she died on November 27.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6471519/Electrician-claims-asbestos-clothes-caused-wifes-cancer.html

There's so many lawsuits over mesothelioma that courts have deemed one only has to prove exposure, causation is presumed.  Courts have also set up funds to pay the claims.

According to a recent Litigation Report, the average mesothelioma trial award is estimated at $2.4 million. The average mesothelioma settlement is between $1 million and $1.4 million and typically paid by multiple defendants.

So the grieving husband has a lot of reason to curse his mischievous mustache.  He could have shaved, of course.

I've been exposed to some pretty harsh carcinogens --  asbestos, tobacco smoke, lead and other heavy metals, concrete dust, pesticides  --  throughout much of my life...

Unfortunately, if I were to die from contracting a cancer caused by one of these,  nowadays I would have a very difficult time suing the (often multinational..) corporations who are responsible for flooding our environs with their poisons..

As past Australian governments have often bent over backwards to protect their corporate masters, while making it increasingly difficult for victims of that corporate negligence (and associated gov't malfeasance..) to obtain any damages and reparations.