Bernard Douglas Banton a former worker of the company James Hardie & Co Pty Ltd. Banton sued James Hardie for negligence. The company knew of the dangers of asbestos for many years before they were going to use it in their plants and yet they still exposed the workers to the dangers continually without protective clothing.
The main individual in this case was Banton and he had the role of the plaintiff. The thing that mostly led him into suing James Hardie was that he had been diagnosed with asbestosis in 1999 after experiencing breathing difficulties during a family ski trip in 1998.
Bernard Douglas Banton or also known as Bernie Banton was born in Sydney in 1946. He began his career at the Camellia plant of Australian building products. From 1968 to 1974 he worked as a lathe operator, shaping blocks of asbestos for use in power stations and making asbestos pipe sections.…show more content… It was widely used in the making of many products such as wall and roof sheeting, etc.
Asbestos fibres have a really fine texture and can spread if touched. This could be while mining asbestos, in manufacturing of asbestos products, in the use of asbestos products and in the disposal of those products.
If the fibres are breathed in they can cause a different types of life-threatening diseases including Asbestosis and Mesothelioma.
Asbestos was banned in 1987. “The Asbestos Diseases Foundation of Australia estimates that there could be up to 40 000 cases of asbestos-related lung cancer by 2020”.
The James Hardie Company is still operating till this day and is worldwide. As shown below. (source: http://www.jameshardie.com.au/company-history/