COPD Compensation Claims
COPD claims may be possible where exposure to harmful dust, fumes or other substances at work has caused or contributed to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and an employer failed to take reasonable steps to protect your health.
COPD can affect breathing, everyday activity and a person’s ability to continue working. Because the condition can develop gradually, the connection with previous employment may not become apparent until years after the exposure took place. This can make it difficult to know whether you have grounds for a claim, particularly if you worked for several employers or were exposed to respiratory hazards over a long period.
Tylers Solicitors can advise you on COPD compensation claims and investigate the circumstances of your workplace exposure. Eligible claims can be handled on a No Win No Fee basis.
If you have been diagnosed with COPD and believe your work may have contributed to it, contact our team on 0800 699 0079 to discuss your circumstances.
Can I Make a COPD Compensation Claim?
You may be able to make a COPD claim if workplace exposure caused or materially contributed to your condition and there is a legal basis for holding an employer or another party responsible.
A diagnosis of COPD and a history of working around dust or fumes do not automatically establish a claim. It will be necessary to consider what you were exposed to, how much exposure occurred, how long it continued and what measures were in place to protect you. Medical evidence will also be important when determining whether your working conditions contributed to the COPD.
Employers have legal duties to protect employees from foreseeable risks to their health. Depending on the period of employment and circumstances involved, a claim could arise where adequate precautions were not taken to control harmful exposure. This might involve failures relating to ventilation, extraction, working practices or suitable respiratory protective equipment.
COPD can have causes and risk factors outside the workplace, including smoking. A history of smoking does not necessarily rule out a workplace COPD claim. Where occupational exposure and other factors may both have contributed to the condition, medical evidence will be needed to consider causation in the individual case.
Claims can also involve exposure that happened many years ago. If a former employer has ceased trading, this does not necessarily mean that a claim is impossible. Historic employment and insurance records may need to be investigated to establish whether a claim can proceed.
COPD sits within a wider group of conditions that can be associated with harmful occupational exposure. Our Industrial Disease Claims page explains more about pursuing compensation for illnesses linked to previous or current employment.
Common Causes Of Workplace COPD
Long-term workplace exposure to certain dusts, fumes and chemicals can increase the risk of developing COPD. The relevant exposure will depend on the person’s occupation, working environment and the substances they encountered during their employment.
Some jobs have historically involved greater exposure to airborne contaminants. Work involving flour or grain dust, mineral dust, silica, cadmium or welding fumes may be relevant when investigating occupational COPD. Industries where exposure can occur include construction, mining, quarrying, agriculture, foundry work, stonemasonry and welding.
Working in one of these industries does not by itself prove that an employer caused COPD. An investigation needs to consider the conditions in which the person actually worked. This can include the concentration and duration of exposure, the protective measures available at the time and what the employer knew or ought reasonably to have known about the risk.
Historic exposure can make this investigation more complicated. Someone diagnosed today may have worked with harmful substances decades earlier and could have held several jobs during that period. Establishing an accurate employment history can therefore be an important part of a COPD claim.
COPD is an umbrella term for chronic lung conditions that cause airflow obstruction. Emphysema falls within COPD, although the terms should not be treated as interchangeable. You can read about compensation involving that condition on our Emphysema Claims page.
Work-related breathing problems can also involve conditions other than COPD. Occupational Asthma Claims, for example, concern asthma caused or made worse by substances encountered at work and are assessed according to the medical evidence for that condition.
Symptoms & Medical Evidence
COPD develops over time and symptoms can initially be mild. Breathlessness is one of the main symptoms, particularly during physical activity. A persistent chesty cough with phlegm, frequent chest infections and persistent wheezing can also occur.
As the condition progresses, breathing difficulties can have a greater effect on everyday life. Someone may find activities that previously caused no difficulty increasingly demanding and symptoms can periodically become worse during exacerbations or flare-ups.
Anyone experiencing persistent respiratory symptoms should seek appropriate medical advice. Similar symptoms can occur with other conditions, so they should not be assumed to mean that someone has COPD or that workplace exposure was responsible.
Medical evidence is central to a COPD compensation claim for the same reason. It can help establish the diagnosis, severity of the condition and prognosis, but the claim also needs to address causation. Where necessary, medical experts can consider the person’s occupational exposure alongside other relevant risk factors when assessing whether work contributed to the disease.
An occupational history can be particularly important where exposure happened many years before diagnosis. Details of previous employers, job roles, substances encountered and the working conditions can help build a clearer picture of possible exposure. Employment records and other historical evidence may also be investigated where available.
The medical evidence has another important role when compensation is assessed. COPD can affect people differently, so the impact on breathing, mobility, employment and everyday activities needs to be considered on the evidence in that particular claim.
Find Out If You May Have a Workplace COPD Claim
If dust, fumes or other harmful workplace exposure caused or contributed to your COPD, our team can assess the circumstances and explain the next steps.
Who May Be Liable for a Workplace COPD Claim?
A current or former employer may be liable for occupational COPD where it can be established that they breached a duty owed to the employee and that the breach caused or contributed to the disease.
What an employer should reasonably have done depends on the circumstances and the standards applicable during the relevant period. Where exposure to substances hazardous to health presented a foreseeable risk, appropriate precautions could include controlling exposure at source, maintaining suitable ventilation or extraction and providing suitable protective equipment where required.
A claim therefore needs to examine more than the eventual COPD diagnosis. The working conditions, nature of the exposure and precautions taken by the employer can all be relevant to establishing liability.
Older COPD claims can involve businesses that no longer operate or employers whose names have changed. This can require investigation into former companies and their employers’ liability insurers. The fact that the exposure happened a long time ago does not, on its own, establish whether a claim can or cannot be made.
Where someone worked for more than one employer in conditions involving potentially harmful respiratory exposure, the history may need to be investigated across several periods of employment. Medical and occupational evidence can then be considered together to determine which exposures are relevant to the condition and whether there is a basis for pursuing compensation.
How Much COPD Compensation Could You Claim?
There is no fixed amount of compensation for a successful COPD claim. The value depends on the severity of the condition, the prognosis and how COPD has affected the person’s work and everyday life.
Medical evidence will be important when assessing general damages for the pain, suffering and loss of amenity caused by the condition. The effect on breathing, physical activity and employment can all be relevant, alongside whether symptoms are expected to worsen.
A claim can also include financial losses caused by the illness where these can be established. Someone who has had to reduce their hours, change occupation or stop working because of COPD may have a claim for past or future loss of earnings. Reasonable treatment, care and other expenses arising from the condition may also be recoverable where supported by evidence.
For a general indication only, you can also use our personal injury compensation calculator. Your individual claim would still need to be assessed using appropriate medical and financial evidence.
COPD & Lung Disease Compensation Guidelines
COPD does not have its own separate compensation bracket in the Judicial College Guidelines. However, the Guidelines contain brackets for lung disease which, except for conditions dealt with separately such as asbestos-related disease and asthma, are intended to encompass other lung disease cases irrespective of their cause.
The appropriate bracket depends on the symptoms, prognosis and effect of the disease rather than the COPD diagnosis alone.
| Lung Disease & Its Effects | Guideline Compensation |
|---|---|
| Disease such as emphysema causing significant and worsening lung function and impaired breathing, with prolonged and frequent coughing, sleep disturbance and restrictions on physical activity and employment | £72,430 to £92,520 |
| Breathing difficulties short of disabling breathlessness, requiring fairly frequent use of an inhaler, with an uncertain prognosis and a significant effect on working and social life | £41,370 to £72,440 |
| Bronchitis and wheezing without serious symptoms, with little or no serious or permanent effect on working or social life | £27,480 to £41,370 |
| Slight breathlessness with no effect on working life and the likelihood of substantial and permanent recovery within a few years of the exposure or aggravation of an existing condition | £14,060 to £27,480 |
| Temporary aggravation of bronchitis or other chest problems which resolves within a few months | £2,910 to £7,030 |
These figures are guidelines for general damages rather than fixed COPD compensation amounts. They do not include any additional financial losses that form part of a successful claim, so the overall value could be different depending on the individual’s circumstances.
The prognosis can be particularly important in lung disease claims. The Judicial College Guidelines recognise that lung disease can be a worsening condition and that the risk of later consequences may affect the appropriate award. The medical evidence in the individual case will therefore be important before compensation can be properly assessed.
How Long Do You Have to Make a COPD Claim?
COPD claims can involve exposure that happened many years before a person receives a diagnosis, which makes the question of time limits particularly important.
Under the limitation rules applying to personal injury claims in England and Wales, court proceedings generally need to be started within three years of the relevant date. For an industrial disease claim, this will not necessarily be the date when the harmful workplace exposure occurred.
The three-year period may instead run from the person’s date of knowledge if this is later. Broadly, this concerns when they knew, or could reasonably have been expected to know, that they had a significant injury which was attributable in whole or in part to the act or omission alleged against the defendant. The precise date can depend on the facts of the case.
Someone who spent years working around dust or fumes should therefore not assume that a claim is already out of time simply because the exposure happened a long time ago. Equally, a recent COPD diagnosis does not automatically mean that the three-year period only began on the date of diagnosis.
There are circumstances in which different limitation rules or exceptions can apply. Because determining the correct deadline in an occupational disease case can require careful consideration of medical history and what was known about the condition at different points, seeking advice promptly can help establish the position.
Our guide to workplace claim time limits provides further general information.
How Tylers Solicitors Can Help
Occupational COPD claims can involve medical evidence, historic working conditions and employment records dating back many years. Tylers Solicitors can investigate these issues and advise you on whether there may be grounds to pursue compensation.
We can look at your employment and exposure history, consider the circumstances in which you worked and obtain the evidence needed to investigate liability and medical causation. Where a former employer has ceased trading, enquiries may also be made into the relevant business and its historic employers’ liability insurance where appropriate.
Our team handles industrial disease compensation claims involving illnesses caused by harmful workplace exposure. We can also advise where the medical evidence points towards a related respiratory condition rather than COPD itself.
Eligible COPD claims can be handled on a No Win No Fee basis. This means you can begin an eligible claim without paying legal fees upfront. The funding arrangement and any deductions that could apply if the claim succeeds will be explained before you decide whether to proceed.
If you have been diagnosed with COPD and believe previous or current working conditions may have contributed to it, call us on 0800 699 0079, email us at info@tylerssolicitors.co.uk or fill in our online contact form to discuss your circumstances.
On This Page
COPD Claims FAQs
Can I claim COPD compensation from a former employer?
You may be able to claim against a former employer if negligent workplace exposure caused or contributed to your COPD. The fact that you no longer work for the business does not prevent a claim by itself.
Older cases can require investigation into historic employment records, working conditions and employers’ liability insurance. The applicable time limit must also be considered.
What evidence will I need for a COPD claim?
Medical evidence is needed to establish the condition and consider whether occupational exposure caused or contributed to it. Your employment history and information about the substances and working conditions you encountered may also be important.
Other evidence will depend on the circumstances of the claim and what records remain available, particularly where the relevant employment was many years ago.
What is the difference between COPD and emphysema?
COPD is a term covering chronic lung conditions involving persistent airflow obstruction. Emphysema is a condition involving damage to the air sacs in the lungs and falls within COPD.
If emphysema is the condition relevant to your workplace exposure, you can find further information on our Emphysema Claims page.
Are COPD claims handled on a No Win No Fee basis?
Tylers Solicitors can handle eligible COPD claims on a No Win No Fee basis. The terms of the funding arrangement will be explained to you before a claim proceeds.
Can I make a COPD claim if I used to smoke?
A history of smoking does not necessarily prevent a COPD claim. Smoking is an important risk factor for COPD, but occupational exposure to certain dusts, fumes and other substances can also be relevant.
Where there are several possible contributing factors, medical evidence will be needed to consider the role played by workplace exposure. Liability cannot be determined from a COPD diagnosis or smoking history alone.
Can I claim if the company I worked for no longer exists?
It may still be possible. Industrial disease claims can relate to employment dating back many years, so the closure of a former employer does not automatically prevent a claim.
Investigations may be needed to identify the former employer and trace the employers’ liability insurer that provided cover during the relevant period.
How long do COPD claims take?
There is no single timescale that applies to every COPD claim. The time required can depend on the complexity of the medical evidence, whether liability is disputed and how straightforward it is to investigate historic employment and insurance information.
A claim should also be valued with appropriate medical evidence about the condition and prognosis rather than being settled before its effects are properly understood.
Related Respiratory Claims
Claims involving emphysema caused or contributed to by harmful workplace exposure.
Claims where dust, fumes, chemicals or allergens at work caused or worsened asthma.
Get In Touch Today
If you have been diagnosed with COPD and believe exposure to dust, fumes or other harmful substances at work may have contributed to your condition, Tylers Solicitors can help you understand whether you have grounds to make a claim.
We can discuss your employment history, the circumstances of your exposure and your diagnosis before explaining the options available to you. You do not need to know at the outset exactly when the exposure occurred or whether a former employer is still trading for us to discuss the circumstances with you.
Call us on 0800 699 0079, email us at info@tylerssolicitors.co.uk or fill in our online enquiry form to speak to Tylers Solicitors about making a COPD claim.