Heirs of dockyard asbestos victim awarded €30,000 in moral damages

The First Hall of the Civil Court in its Constitutional jurisdiction has awarded a family €30,000 in moral damages over the death of a worker at Malta Drydocks who had been exposed to asbestos.

Andrew Psaila had died in 1988 of mesothelioma – a type of incurable cancer exclusively caused by prolonged exposure to asbestos – after having been employed for nearly 30 years at the Malta Drydocks as a pipe worker. He was 60 years old.

His heirs had filed a Constitutional claim against the government's chief medical officer, the Attorney General and the Occupational Health and Safety Authority, arguing that the exposure to asbestos had effectively breached his fundamental right to life, and to compensate them for the suffering they had endured due to the loss of their father.

Judge Joseph McKeon held that the right to life, as guaranteed by the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, did not only prohibit the termination of life but also imposed an obligation on the state to take the necessary steps to ensure that life is not placed in danger.

In this case, the court held, the state had failed to update health and safety legislation while scientific understanding of the dangers of exposure to asbestos was developing.

Ruling that Andrew Psaila had suffered a breach of his right to life, the court ordered the chief medical officer and the Attorney General to pay €30,000 by way of compensation. The Occupational Health and Safety Authorities, having been set up in the year 2000, 12 years after Psaila's death, was declared exempt from responsibility.

The judgement comes some three months after the government was ordered to pay over €200,000 in damages to the heirs of Paul Pullicino. Pullicino, a Works Department employee who had filed a lawsuit against the Director of Works in 2009, a year after he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, caused by his exposure to asbestos whilst servicing government vehicles.