The family of Anne Lawton, a grandmother who allegedly died from asbestos poisoning, is suing Boots for potential exposure during her employment with the company. Anne began working at the pharmacy at age 15 in 1957 and later claimed she was repeatedly exposed to hazardous asbestos dust during a store refit in Stoke-on-Trent.
In 2019, Anne, a grandmother of four from Cheadle, Staffs, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an incurable cancer linked to asbestos exposure. She passed away in February 2021 at the age of 77, before her compensation claim against Boots could be heard in the High Court. Her family is now seeking £135,000 in damages, accusing Boots of neglecting to take simple and cost-effective measures to protect its staff from asbestos dust.
Boots is contesting the claim, arguing that they did not breach their duty to Mrs. Lawton and that there was no “foreseeable risk” of her contracting a deadly disease. Judge Vikram Sachdeva KC heard that Mrs. Lawton began working at the Hanley store in September 1957 during a refurbishment that allegedly involved installing asbestos-containing suspended ceilings.
In a statement before her death, Mrs. Lawton described having to sweep the “incredibly dusty” floors regularly, generating vast amounts of dust that staff disturbed as they moved around the store. She recalled that every floor was dusty, including the locker room next to where the ceiling was being fitted, and that she had dust all over her clothes from sweeping storerooms twice daily.
Mrs. Lawton continued to be exposed to poisonous dust after the refit when sent to the store basement, where pipes with damaged lagging were present. She left Boots in 1969-70 after working in the store’s books department.
For her family, barrister Simon Kilvington KC argues that the asbestos in the dust created a “foreseeable risk” of injury and that Boots failed to take any simple and inexpensive steps to mitigate this risk. He noted that part of the exposure occurred after public awareness of asbestos dangers increased post-1965.
John Williams KC, representing The Boots Company Plc, denies that the risk to Mrs. Lawton was foreseeable by the standards of the time and refutes any breach of duty owed to her. He stated that before 1965, it was believed that deadly diseases were only a risk with “heavy and prolonged” asbestos exposure and argued that Boots was not obligated to investigate the pipe lagging in the basement.
The trial is ongoing.