Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council V Municipal Mutual Insurance Case Study

Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council v Municipal Mutual Insurance Co. Ltd& another [2006] 1 WLR 1492.
It concerned claims brought forward by employers who were sufferers of mesothelioma, due to the prolonged exposure to asbestos. Traditionally, employer’s liability in the UK has always adopted the practice of the ‘exposure’ principle in formulating cover for mesothelioma claims. Therefore the employer’s liability policy at the time when the claimant was exposed to asbestos would respond instead of the one in place where symptoms have occurred, or when the claimant became diagnosed. This original practice was thrown into doubt where under the terms of the policy the insurer agreed to indemnify the insured in the event that it became liable for
Liability only attaches when actionable injury occurs which is years later. Long latency periods can cause subsequent problems.

Despite the decision in Wilsher which held that the infliction of personal injury is causally indivisible implying that the all or nothing principle should guide the award of compensation things changed dramatically in Britain following the decisions in Holtby v Brigham & Cowan (Hull) Ltd [2000] 3 All ER 421 and Allen v British Rail Engineering Ltd [2001] ECWA 242. These two cases allowed for important factors to be established, whereby even if a claimant has failed to prove what had been the source cause of his injury was still entitled to claim compensation, this was specific to cases which involved multiple causal factors in terms of the material contribution doctrine. In Holtby, the development of asbestosis due to the inhaling of asbestos dust had developed in the claimant, after which he sued one of his employers for whom he had worked for about approximately 12 years. Who he believed was responsible for his injury as he had worked with asbestos materials. He sued his employer on the basis of negligence and breach of statutory duty. However he was exposed to asbestos by another
On the other hand viewed from the perspective of claimants can be viewed as just recourse for having suffered serious harm. This can be made apparent by yet another landmark case in Britain on liability for occupational diseases in the case of Fairchild v Glenhaven Funeral Services Ltd. [2001] 1 WLR 1052. A case of a conjoined appeal which involved three claimants who developed mesothelioma through working with asbestos due to a single fibre which the claimant has inhaled, the details of the claimant are not exactly relevant but what is crucial to note that employment had been with more than one employer and because the claimant was not exposed to asbestos or side of the employment, the cell in the body which had been contaminated could only have been as