Mr Brown, Moulder

Posted: 10th Apr 17 2:07 PM

Mr Brown was diagnosed with asbestos pleural thickening in October 2010. He was 71 years of age at that time. He had been exposed to asbestos at the Fibrecrete Factory in Chalford, Stroud, Gloucestershire. Fibrecrete manufactured asbestos products including sheets and downpipes. At the beginning of his employment he was a light moulder, and he received wet asbestos sheets which he would cut using hand tools, and he would then craft them over moulds of ridge tiles. He then trimmed around the moulds and placed them to dry. The factory dealt exclusively with asbestos products. The products would lie around the factory until dry, and the drying process would take about 12 hours. He would collect the moulds and peel the dry asbestos material off the mould and used a sanding belt to clean all the edges. The claimant was on a piece work as a team member and so was encouraged to do as much work as possible.

Later on in his employment he was a heavy moulder, which involved removing huge sheets of asbestos from machines and moulding them into 3 and 6 inch moulds for corrugated sheeting. Again he was working with wet asbestos moulding in a similar way but on larger and heavier products. Mr Brown was also involved in a bizarre incident whereby blue asbestos was sprayed on ceilings in an effort to stop condensation forming. It was thought that it would insulate the ceiling and thus prevent condensation but what actually happened was that shortly after application the asbestos started to break up on the ceiling and the workers below would get covered with lumps of blue asbestos fibre, rather than water droplets.

Settlement was achieved in this case in May 2013 on a provisional damages basis.