By Adrian Hill

On the news recently there was yet another story of someone suing an ex-employer who had permitted people to smoke in the workplace. The amount of smoke in the atmosphere at work was adjudged by the court to have been the cause of the woman’s cancer because experts believed cigarette smoke was the sole cause of that kind of cancer.

You don’t have to draw a terribly long bow to see the connection to lead. Already there has been a court case involving an employee suing an employer when he got lead poisoned at work (see LEAD Action News v5n1, p.16 - "Man Wins Lead Poison Costs Fight").

Just how far can all this go? What is the potential for suing for lead poisoning - could one sue a landlord? A builder? What about lead in consumer products? This is all largely untested in the courts - so far!

And why hasn’t much of it reached the courts yet?  But forty years ago, who would have dreamt that passive smoking would be the cause of so much litigation?

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