Pinder v Cape Plc

A manufacturer’s duty of care in disposing of asbestos waste depends on what injury was reasonably foreseeable at the relevant time and which persons fell within the foreseeable class. Occasional exposure outside the workplace does not automatically attract the same duty as occupational exposure. The court must consider both the level of exposure and the circumstances in which it occurred. A claimant who played on a local-authority refuse tip after waste had been deposited was outside the class of persons whom the manufacturer should reasonably have contemplated, where the manufacturer had no reason to know that children played there. The standards of the period, rather than hindsight, govern foreseeability.

The claimant developed mesothelioma after playing as a child on a refuse tip at Scout Road, Mytholmroyd. He alleged that asbestos waste from the defendant’s Acre Mill factory had been deposited there by the defendant’s own vehicles and personnel. The court found that the asbestos exposure materially contributed to the disease and that the waste came from the defendant.

The central issue was whether, in the 1950s, the defendant owed a duty of care to a child who was exposed to asbestos dust while playing on a local-authority tip.

1. Findings of fact. The claimant’s mesothelioma was caused or materially contributed to by asbestos exposure at Scout Road Tip. The waste came from the defendant’s Acre Mill factory and substantial quantities were deposited by the defendant’s own personnel using its own lorries.
2. Applicable approach. The existence and scope of the duty depended on ordinary foreseeability principles, including the principle stated in Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562. In asbestos cases, the court had to consider both the level of exposure and the circumstances in which exposure occurred.
3. Level of exposure. The claimant’s exposure was occasional and intermittent, although it could involve substantial dust concentrations. Applying the reasoning discussed in Maguire v Harland and Wolf PLC [2005] EWCA Civ 1, the court held that such exposure would not, by the standards of the 1950s, have made the risk of injury reasonably foreseeable to the defendant.
4. Foreseeable class. Persons who handled, transported or disposed of asbestos waste, and persons exposed to airborne dust from its transport, could reasonably have been contemplated. Children playing on a refuse tip under local-authority control after the waste had been deposited were an unjustified extension of that class. The defendant had no evidence-based reason to know that children played there.
5. Environmental exposure. The environmental principle identified in Margereson [1996] PIQR P358 did not assist the claimant because the exposure level and circumstances differed materially. The defendant also had no duty, by 1950s standards, to manage or fence the local-authority tip or to provide particular disposal advice.
6. Disposition. The defendant did not owe the claimant a duty of care. The claim therefore failed.