Receiving a diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), emphysema, or severe asthma is life-altering. These conditions steal your breath, limiting your ability to work, enjoy life, and spend quality time with your family.
While generally associated with smoking or genetic factors, thousands of Australians develop debilitating lung conditions because of the dust and toxins they breathed at work. If you’ve been exposed to hazardous dust, fumes, or chemicals during your career, your diagnosis may be directly linked to your employment.
At Segelov Taylor Lawyers, we understand the profound impact these diseases have. We are expert dust disease lawyers dedicated to helping workers and their families secure the compensation they deserve.
How Can Work Cause COPD, Emphysema, and Asthma?
- COPD & Emphysema: The tiny air sacs in your lungs (alveoli) are damaged, reducing their ability to transfer oxygen to your blood. Airways become inflamed, narrowed, and clogged with mucus, making it extremely difficult to breathe.
- Occupational Asthma: Exposure to a sensitiser at work can trigger an allergic reaction in your airways, causing them to swell and constrict. Unlike childhood asthma, this form develops in adulthood as a direct result of your work environment.
It’s crucial to understand that even if you have a pre-existing condition, workplace exposure that significantly worsens or aggravates your lung disease can still entitle you to compensation.
High-Risk Industries and Exposures
- Mining
- Construction & Stonemasonry
- Welding & Metalwork
- Manufacturing
- Agriculture & Farming
- Baking & Milling
- Textile Industry
Compensation Information Kit
Get expert answers you need with our free Compensation Information Kit.
This guide provides information about lung cancer compensation options, including the claims process, potential entitlements to lump sum payments, weekly payments for medical and care costs, and legal costs.
As the law is different in each state, the Kit provides state-specific information.
The guide is sent out in the mail. To receive your guide, please complete the form or call our expert team on 1800 430 855.
A Crucial Note on Smoking: Can I Still Make a Claim?
This is the most common question we hear, and the answer is often yes.
Insurance companies will try to argue that a smoking history or genetics is the cause of your lung disease. However, Australian law recognises that this is not always true, and also that a disease can have more than one cause.
If we can prove with expert medical evidence that your workplace dust exposure was a cause in the development or acceleration of your respiratory disease, you can still have a successful claim, even with a history of smoking. Do not assume you have no rights. Let our experts assess the specific details of your case.
Navigating the Path to Compensation
- Conduct a free, no-obligation review of your work history and medical diagnosis.
- Gather detailed evidence of your exposure and employment records.
- Engage leading medical specialists to provide expert reports linking your condition to your work.
- Navigate the complex claims process. Most matters (90% plus settle before Court)
- Fight to maximise your compensation, which can cover medical bills, lost income, pain and suffering, and the cost of future care.
How Many Respiratory Diseases are Work-Related?
- Adult-Onset Asthma: The Lung Foundation Australia and other international studies estimate that approximately 15% of all adult-onset asthma cases are related to occupational exposures. For some working asthmatics, their condition is either caused by work or significantly worsened by it.
- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD): Research published in medical journals suggests that workplace exposures to dusts, gases, and fumes are a significant contributing factor in approximately 15-20% of all COPD cases. For a disease commonly blamed on smoking, this highlights that nearly one in five cases has a direct link to a person’s job.
- Lung Cancer: According to the Lung Foundation, occupational exposure is a major cause of lung cancer, contributing to an estimated 29% of cases in men and 5% in women. This is often due to inhaling substances like asbestos fibres, silica dust, diesel exhaust, and welding fumes.
- Long Latency Periods: Many occupational lung diseases take decades to develop, making it difficult to connect the illness back to a job held long ago.
- Misdiagnosis: The symptoms of occupational lung diseases (like shortness of breath and coughing) are similar to other conditions, and doctors may not always investigate a patient’s work history.
- Complex Causation: For conditions like COPD, it is easy to blame a person’s smoking history entirely, even when workplace dust was a major contributing factor.
- Lack of Awareness: Many workers are simply unaware that their breathing difficulties could be compensable, and therefore never make a claim.
Take the First Step Today
Living with a chronic lung disease is difficult enough without the added stress of financial uncertainty. You may have a right to significant compensation that can provide security for you and your family.
Contact the compassionate, expert team at Segelov Taylor Lawyers for a confidential and cost-free discussion about your situation. We’re here to listen and to help you understand your legal rights.
Call us today on 02 8880 0500 or fill out our online enquiry form to get started.
FAQ
The claims can be completed very quickly, particularly when the plaintiff is very sick. In some cases, claims have been started and finished within a week.
When normal expedition applies, claims usually take between three and six months to complete after the claim is filed.
Yes, absolutely. This is the most common concern we address, and the answer is clear. The law recognises that asbestos exposure and smoking have a synergistic effect, meaning their combined risk is far greater than either risk alone.1 If your work history exposed you to significant levels of asbestos, that exposure is considered a material cause of your lung cancer. The company that negligently exposed you cannot use your smoking history to avoid its responsibility. We have successfully secured compensation for many clients who were also smokers.
Provided the claim has been commenced in your lifetime, full damages are available.
Historically, a claim needed to be completed in a person’s lifetime to recover damages for pain and suffering which is usually the most significant part of a claim. However, the law has been changed over the last 15-30 years in all states so that as long as proceedings are filed in your lifetime, rights are preserved. Your estate can continue your claim and recover damages for pain and suffering and loss of expectation of life. The entitlement to some compensation, primarily future economic loss may be affected.
- The first step is to meet with Tanya or David who will take a detailed history, including as to where you were exposed to asbestos and provide you some initial advice. We will provide a costs disclosure and some authorities enabling us to obtain detailed information.
- We will then conduct some further enquiries to confirm the diagnosis and more more information about who may be liable. We will provide detailed advice on a claim and may seek your instructions to begin a common law claim (the process in Qld is slightly different as a Workcover claim will usually be made at this stage).
- If you so instruct, we will commence proceedings on your behalf . At this stage, the general damages are protected for the benefit of your estate.
- There will be a process of further investigations, and information exchange with the defendant. This process is different in each state.
- We will put an offer to the other side to settle the claim.
- The matter will proceed to a settlement conference, also known as a mediation. Most matters settle at or around this time, although if they do not, they can settle at any later stage as well.
- If your matter does not settle at or around mediation, your claim will proceed to a court hearing. Following a hearing the judge will issue a judgment as to liability and the amount of compensation to be paid.
You can claim compensation.
From a legal perspective, the answer is that each exposure caused the disease. Expert evidence accepted by Courts in Australia is that each exposure that is not de minimis (a legal term meaning too small to be meaningful or taken into consideration) and which occurred in the latency period (at least 10 –20 years prior to exposure) is a cause of any lung cancer which later develops.
If you have been exposed in multiple places you can obtain full compensation by suing in respect of any of the places you were exposed.
You cannot ‘double-dip’.
Typically, “cross-claims” will occur if you have been exposed at multiple places, which operates to share the costs of compensation among the defendants.
Icare compensation (NSW Statutory compesnation) and common law claims are provide different compensation.
Almost everyone who receives compensation from icare Dust Disease Care would be entitled to additional compensation by way of a common law claim. These claims do not impact or reduce the icare benefit and are generally worth significantly more than the icare benefit.
The legal system prioritises claims for people with asbestos-related diseases due to the seriousness of the illness. While every case is unique, these claims are treated with urgency by the courts and tribunals. Most asbestos-related lung cancer claims are resolved within 6-9 months, and often much sooner. The majority of cases are settled through negotiation, without the need for a final court hearing, which helps to secure your compensation as quickly as possible.
You don’t need to have all the proof ready to speak with us.
Our expert team will handle the investigation for you. The key evidence we will gather includes a detailed account of your work history to identify where and when you were exposed to asbestos, and medical reports that confirm your lung cancer diagnosis. We also look for clinical evidence of asbestos damage, such as the presence of asbestosis.
We have extensive experience in building strong cases, even when the exposure happened decades ago.
This is a very common situation and does not prevent a successful claim. Companies that exposed workers to asbestos were required to have insurance. Our firm maintains an extensive database of historical insurance records for companies across Australia, even those that ceased operating many years ago. We will trace the correct insurer and bring the claim against them to secure your compensation.
Information Videos
Most people with mesothelioma can make a claim at common law. A common law claim is a claim in court for lump sum compensation. A claim is commenced by filing a Statement of Claim in court.
All States have developed specialised processes to deal with mesothelioma claims. In New South Wales claims are filed in the Dust Diseases Tribunal, a specialist court which has special rules of evidence and procedure to expedite claims. In other States, claims are brought in special lists in the Supreme Court or District Court to ensure that the needs of people with mesothelioma are addressed.
Most claims are brought against a former employer, manufacturer of asbestos products or an occupier of a building. If the employer no longer exists a claim can be made against the employer’s workers’ compensation insurer.
In all States matters proceed to a pre-trial or court appointed settlement conference or a mediation to see if the matter can be resolved prior to the hearing.
Most claims settle at mediation or after mediation but before the trial. If a matter proceeds to hearing, then in most jurisdictions evidence in chief can be given by way of Affidavit. If you are not well enough to travel, then your evidence will be taken at your home or hospital.
The courts will do everything possible to finish a claim in your lifetime. However, if you die before your claim is finished then provided the claim was filed in court in your lifetime, the claim can be continued by your estate at full value.
If you were exposed to asbestos during the course of employment in New South Wales, then you can make a claim at common law as well as receive a pension and have your medical and other expenses paid by the Dust Diseases Authority.
Claims generally take between three to six months from start to finish however claims can go faster if required. The court will do everything possible to finish your claim in your lifetime. If your condition deteriorates you can approach the court at any time with medical evidence and seek an urgent hearing or mediation date.
It is not uncommon for a person diagnosed with mesothelioma to not immediately recall where they were exposed to asbestos particularly if they did not work with asbestos. Over the last decade we have seen the rise of “third wave” mesothelioma victims, persons exposed to asbestos outside of work because of home renovations or the work of others.
Two out of three homes built in the period 1940 to 1983 contain asbestos fibro sheets even if only on the eaves and wet area (bathroom, laundry and kitchen). All fibro prior to 1983 contained asbestos.
There is no threshold of exposure to asbestos for the development of mesothelioma. This means you may have had a small exposure to asbestos from renovating or assisting to renovate your home or being present while renovation or building work were carried out by others such as
- Cutting, drilling and installing fibro sheets,
- Removing or demolishing fibro sheets
- Sanding and painting fibro walls,
- Sweeping up after painting work or building work
- Shaking out and washing clothes worn during renovation or painting work.
You may have also been exposed to asbestos through the work of others such as washing a spouse or relative’s work clothes or embracing a spouse or relative when they returned from work in their work clothes.
We have acted for hundreds of persons with asbestos disease over 20 years and have accumulated knowledge, contacts and records to assist you in establishing where you were exposed to asbestos. We will come to your home or hospital and take detailed instructions and conduct research to determine your exposure to asbestos. If we cannot establish were you were exposed to asbestos, you will not be charged for any work we have carried out.
The amount of damages varies between states. However, throughout Australia most mesothelioma claims resolve for between $400,000.00 and $600,000.00 clear in your hand (after all costs and repayments have been deducted) plus any additional compensation that may exist for economic loss and replacement services.
(Note that this amount has increased since the video was made.
If you are successful in your claim, you will be awarded lump sum compensation to compensate you for
- Pain and suffering
- Loss of expectation of life
- Past and future out of pocket expenses
- The commercial cost of gratuitous care
- Economic loss if you were working at the time of symptoms
- The commercial cost of replacing care you provided to a dependant because of age, physical or mental disability and
- Costs
If you were exposed to asbestos during employment in New South Wales, your common law settlement will not affect your right to receive a pension and have your medical and other expenses paid by the Dust Diseases Authority.
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The vast majority of claims settle out of court either at a mediation or court appointed settlement conference or in the lead up to the hearing. It is very rare that a matter will proceed to final hearing.
Where matters proceed to court it is usually because of a dispute as to how much a claim is worth. Such a claim will normally take only one or two days to be heard and judgment will be given within a very short space of time, usually a week.
If you are not well enough to attend court, then your evidence will be taken at your home or hospital. In most courts your evidence in chief will be given by a written statement known as an Affidavit.
Segelov Taylor acts on a “no win-no fee” basis in all mesothelioma claims. This means we only recover our fees if you are successful in your claim. You will not be charged any monies up front. We will pay all the disbursements (monies paid out by us for such things as court fees and medical reports). We will not be paid for our work until the successful completion of your matter.
In addition, If you are successful in your claim, then the defendant will be ordered to pay most (generally about 70-85%) of your costs.
Our fees our determined by an hourly rate plus disbursements. We do not charge a percentage of compensation recovered. This model is not legal in Australia.
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Book a Free Case Assessment
Start the compensation process by arranging a free case assessment.
In the free initial case assessment we will obtain general information and provide preliminary advice on whether we believe you are likely to have a claim for compensation, the value of any claim and our costs in the event you were to instruct us.
The case assessment is usually via phone (we will call you at the arranged time) or by video conference (such as Zoom or Teams).
There is no cost associated with this case assessment, nor any obligation to instruct us in your matter.