The High Court awarded a joinery worker €36,500 after finding that hardwood dust at work temporarily worsened his asthma. The court found his employer negligent for failing to provide effective respiratory protection, but concluded that workplace exposure did not cause the underlying asthma.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Herbert on 27 November 2014, concerned a claim by John Lawlor against Carroll System Buildings (1970) Limited. The court found that Lawlor developed shortness of breath and wheezing while jogging in June 2001, after he had begun working mainly with hardwoods on a spindle moulder and morticer.
The judge found hardwood dust was a known and foreseeable health risk. The masks provided before 2002 were ineffective, and the employer should have supplied proper protection. The court rejected the employer’s allegation that Lawlor was contributorily negligent.
The central medical question was whether exposure caused occupational asthma. Lawlor’s respiratory physician considered that it did; the employer’s expert considered that he had common asthma, temporarily aggravated by dust. The judge was not satisfied that exposure caused the asthma. He found, however, that inhaling hardwood dust exacerbated Lawlor’s common asthma for a period, causing mild to moderate symptoms from June 2001. Those symptoms began to diminish after he stopped working for the company at Christmas 2002.
The court separately refused the employer’s application to dismiss the action under sections 25 and 26 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004. The defendant argued that Lawlor had given a false answer in particulars about prior illness and had withheld information from medical experts. The judge described the answer as incorrect, but found it would have been unjust to dismiss the case: the relevant 1999 medical-record entry had been available to both sides’ lawyers, and there was no evidence Lawlor had the records himself. The court also found no basis to dismiss over information supplied to experts.
The judge criticised several inaccurate statements in claim particulars and affidavits, including claims about medical referrals and lost earnings. The lost-earnings claim was withdrawn. The court awarded €35,000 in general damages and €1,500 in special damages, making €36,500, together with appropriate costs.