A widow who contracted the same cancer as her husband had, has received £700,000 in asbestos compensation following years of washing his asbestos-covered clothing. 66-year-old Monica Haxton cared for her husband Ronald as he suffered with mesothelioma. Ronald had spent years working as an electrician for Philips Electronics UK Ltd in Guildford before eventually dying of the incurable lung cancer associated with asbestos.
Mrs Haxton, a mother of four and a grandmother of eight, cared for her husband during his final years, and two years before his death in 2009, also started to develop the same symptoms as her dying husband. Suffering with severe breathlessness, Mrs Haxton was diagnosed with the same illness in January 2012. Her husband had worked with Philips Electronics for over 40 years, and spent a great deal of time exposed to lethal asbestos. His job involved dismantling boilers and other equipment at the company’s factory in Balham in south London, all of which contributed to his early death.
Shake the dust out of his work clothes
Mrs Haxton contracted the cancer through washing her husband’s clothing. The family did not own a washing machine, so Mrs Haxton would shake the dust out of his work clothes before hand-washing them in the sink. Mrs Haxton had been a ward clerk in St Anthony’s Hospital, but has had her life expectancy “drastically curtailed” by the illness, and has been given around six to twelve months to live.
A claim related to her husband’s death was settled at £195,000, yet Philips agreed to compensate Mrs Haxton for her own illness, awarding her with £310,000 compensation. Despite this, lawyers argued that an extra £200,000 should be awarded due to her shortened life expectancy, which was eventually awarded on the 23rd of January.
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