SYDNEY - An asbestos compensation award of A$320,000 ($356,000) to a New Zealander has paved the way for victims around the world, a Sydney lawyer says.
Tanya Segelov, a partner in Turner Freeman, the dust disease law firm that ran the case, said the 60-year-old man, who had asked toremain anonymous, worked with James Hardie products as an insulation contractor in New Zealand between 1963 and 1966.
He was diagnosed with asbestosis in 2000.
The Dust Diseases Tribunal in New South Wales ruled last month that Amaca, a subsidiary of James Hardie, the Australian building products giant, must pay the man $320,000 in compensation.
Ms Segelov said that under New Zealand's ACC scheme, people with asbestos-related diseases could receive payouts only if they were in contact with asbestos in Australia.
"There are a lot of people in New Zealand who have been exposed to asbestos who have been trying to find a way to sue," she said.
"Many of them now live in Australia who, when working in New Zealand, were exposed to it there."
Under New Zealand law, pensioners, including her client, would have been paid only A$40 a week from the Accident Compensation Corporation, she said.
"But we argued that Australian law should be applied because we were suing for the manufacture of the product and that product was manufactured here in Australia."
Ms Segelov said that while the ruling was not necessarily a carte blanche for anyone to lodge a lawsuit over asbestos poisoning in Australia, it gave a reason for others around the world to make claims.
"We have always thought you can't have a fund that just cuts people outside of Australia off, because Australians have worked elsewhere," Ms Segelov said.
"A lot of Australians were sent overseas, they did contracts in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and other places where [James] Hardie sold its products.
"This ruling is the shot those people have been waiting for and whether they get through it or not, at least it has opened the door to justice."
