Miners whose health was ruined by inhaling coal dust at work could present the government with a compensation bill totalling more than �3.5 billion.

The calculation was made after Mr Justice Turner approved average damages awards of �18,000 to six miners involved in a High Court case.

With an estimated 200,000 miners, former miners and their widows waiting in the wings with similar claims, the final sum could reach �3,600,000,000.

Last month the judge made a landmark ruling when he sided with the six test cases brought against their former employer, British Coal.

He ruled that British Coal, the defunct nationalised industry now under government administration, had been negligent in operating its mines. Miners, he said, had suffered emphysema and chronic bronchitis as a result of working underground.

Awards raised

The total damages bill could run into billions of pounds

The initial awards of up to �10,000 each were increased to an average of �18,000 after the judge heard further evidence on matters such as loss of earnings, and medical and care costs.

The judge also ruled that Cordelia Wells, widow of one of the six test case miners should receive the full statutory bereavement damages of �7,500.

Mr Wells's ill health damages were halved because smoking was half to blame for his chronic emphysema. British Coal had tried to argue that a similar cut should be made to the bereavement award.

The judge's uncompromising position opens the floodgates for hundreds of other widows to make the same claim, whether or not their deaths may have been partly attributable to smoking.

Sums welcomed

Solicitor Andrew Tucker, whose practice Irwin Mitchell represented some of the miners, was pleased with the outcome.

"The final award reflects the sums of money which are of a size to make a real impact on the lives of the six plaintiffs," said Mr Tucker. "We are pleased for them and also for the impact it will have on many other cases."

Initial compensation awards average �18,000 each

Mr Justice Tucker described British Coal's approach to the case as "messy and grudging" and said it had wasted "substantial amounts of court time".

With that in mind he imposed a punitive scale of legal costs on the government for part of the year-long litigation after it tried to argue coal dust was not a cause of bronchitis or emphysema, going against the findings of its own medical reports.

He ordered that two miners who failed in their legal claims should not have to bear the costs. Most of those should again fall on the government because the men had not failed to prove wrong-doing by British Coal, they had simply failed to prove their illnesses were caused by inhaling coal dust.

The Department for Trade and Industry, which has already started talks with miners' lawyers over compensation, said it did not know how many claims would follow. But a spokesman admitted the eventual amount would be substantial.
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