12.2.3.2 Engeland

"Different considerations apply in relation to personal injury claims, and, despite the arguments cited above, we are minded to exempt such claims from the longstop limitation period we recommend. Our provisional proposal that there should be a long-stop limitation period in personal injury claims was rejected by around fifty-five per cent of consultees. The major concern at the suggestion that a longstop should apply to personal injury claims was that this would be unjust to claimants suffering from latent diseases, where the disease in question does not manifest itself within the long-stop period. Claims for asbestos-related disease present particular problems. The latency period for mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung caused by exposure to asbestos, can be anything between fifteen and sixty years, and we have been informed by consultees who are consultant physicians practising in asbestosis-related disease that the median latency period is over thirty years. Thus, a long-stop limitation period of thirty years would prevent most claimants suffering from mesothelioma from recovering damages for that disease. We have also been informed that the incidente of asbestos-related disease is increasing, and is expected to continue to do so for at least the next twenty-five years."1