Business
South Africa: Gold firms face silicosis class action suit
The planned suit, which has little precedent in South African law, has its roots in a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court a year ago that for the first time allowed lung-diseased miners to sue their employers for damages.
The plaintiff in that case, Thembekile Mankayi, had sought 2.6 million rand (US$ 342,000) in damages, loss of earnings, medical bills and pain and suffering caused by silicosis and tuberculosis allegedly contracted while working for AngloGold from 1979 to 1995.
Mankayi died days before the ruling.
Spoor would not be drawn on the size of any desired settlement, but industry research suggests the mining houses could be facing a bill running into the billions of rand should they lose.
At their height in the 1980s, South Africa’s gold mines employed 500,000 men, and some medical research suggests as many as one in two former gold miners has silicosis.
A 2009 paper by researchers from Johannesburg’s Witswatersrand University and University College, London, estimated that there were 288,000 cases of compensable silicosis in South Africa.
It also assessed the industry’s unpaid compensation liability at 10 billion rand at 1998 values. Today, that is worth 27 billion rand – more than US$3.5 billion.
