An Australian woman developed mesothelioma after washing her husband’s work clothes that were covered in asbestos dust. Now, 70-year-old Beverly Stavar is engaged in a landmark asbestos case, and hopes her struggle will inspire more crusades for compensation. Stavar has just won a case in the New South Wales Court of Appeal, allowing her to sue Caltex, the company her husband Frank worked for. Until Stavar’s case, family members of workers who came into contact with asbestos had some success in asbestos cases.

But according to Jim McIntyre, Ms. Stavar’s attorney, "This is the first case in which a member of an asbestos worker’s household has succeeded in obtaining a judgment at the conclusion of a fully contested hearing."

Peter Gordon, an attorney representing Caltex, admitted that the ruling ”was an important step in the development of consumers’ right in relation to asbestos…It is yet another affirmation of the duty of care that large companies, in particular, have got when they have toxic substances like asbestos on their premises."

"One thing that can be clearly said for the likes of Caltex is that they have had access to knowledge, science and research and have obligations which extend not just to their own workforce but to others, including families, that might be affected," he added.

Ms. Stavar was previously awarded compensation, but Caltex disputed the ruling and would only give her part of the money she had been awarded. Judge O’Meally, who oversaw the Court of Appeal case, said it was "reasonably foreseeable from at least the mid 1960s that exposure to small amounts of asbestos was capable of causing injury to people in the class of which Mrs Stavar was a member".

Mesothelioma, although rare, is an extremely aggressive form of cancer that is always fatal. There is no known cure for mesothelioma, and the majority of patients succumb to the disease in less than two years following diagnosis.

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