SOLICITORS who secured insufficient pay-outs for their sick clients in the mining community are coming under fire from a new investigation team.
Merseyside TUC has launched the nationwide service in conjunction with the Wirral H&S Welfare Advice Centre, after president Alec McFadden uncovered gaps in miners’ compensation that varied by more than £6,000 between different companies.
The formation of the action team is the latest development in a fight for fair compensation for miners made fatally ill from inhaling coal dust and developing such diseases as emphysema and vibration white finger.
Mr McFadden told the Daily Post: “What I’m looking for is people who feel they didn’t get what they were entitled to.
“The team of experts will then request solicitors’ case papers and assess each case.
“If we believe it has not been rightly compensated we will sue, with compensation to be paid directly to the miner or their surviving family.�
The TUC is now in talks with solicitors’ firms to help take on the workload, and plans to hold a consultation meeting in August with the people who want to go ahead with having their settlements looked at again.
The action team was spurred on following a report from Labour peer Lord Lofthouse back in April, which revealed that a government compensation fund had “exploited� coal workers and accused some law firms of making millions while miners had their pay-outs reduced by legal fees.
The compensation fund was set up in 1997 on the understanding that only certain firms with trade union links would carry out the work.
But independent claim handlers infiltrated mining communities encouraging people to sign up to claim – sometimes even charging them to do so.
The companies then sold the details on to solicitors, in many cases without the specialist knowledge to handle the cases to greatest effect.
Mr McFadden said: “Some people were getting pay-outs of £2,000, when our union solicitor Thompsons was getting others £9,500 – clearly something was wrong.�
Mr McFadden arranged for political contact David Anderson MP to raise the issue in Parliament, resulting in the figures highlighting the discrepancy between settlements.
They name Warrington-based Avalon as one of the lowest settling firms, claiming on average £2,063 out of its 32,419 cases.
Andrew Nulty, a senior partner at Avalon, was named the highest-earning solicitor in the country in 2005.
Last night Mr Nulty was not available for comment.
Other national firms named included Beresford, the Union of Democratic Miners, and Delta Legal.
Parkside colliery in St Helens was the last coal mine in Merseyside, and was closed in the early 1990s.
The action team will analyse the case of any ex- miner or their family free of charge, by leaving their details on 0151 666 1999/ 6661166 after 5pm.