The long-running silicosis litigation brought by 23 former mineworkers against Anglo American South Africa (AASA) was settled last week.

London-based human rights law firm Leigh Day partner Richard Meeran made the announcement at a Johannesburg press briefing.

The agreement to resolve fully and finally 23 standalone silicosis claims, instituted against AASA between 2004 and 2009, was reached without the admission of liability by AASA.

While the terms of the settlement remained confidential, the settlement was said to include the payment of a sum of money to the 23 claimants, eight of whom are from Lesotho and the remainder from South Africa, for pain and suffering, lost earnings and medical expenses.

The 23 claimants include 18 President Steyn mine claimants and five Anglo American Free State-based mine claimants.

Meeran noted that the settlement was in the best interests of the claimants, “as awaiting the conclusion of arbitration would have delayed the payment of compensation by at least another year”.

He expected compensation to be paid to the claimants as early as the beginning of this month. During the course of the litigation, seven miners died from their condition, while the health of the others had become “very fragile”.

Meeran said this delay “suits the industry because the longer the litigation continues, the more miners are likely to pass away, which would, in turn, mean that the claim for compensation for pain and suffering would not be paid to the families of the deceased”.

Meanwhile, he said the litigation, which was being handled by Leigh Day, the Legal Resources Centre and Garratt Mbuyisa Neale attorney Zanele Mbuyisa, with funding from Legal Aid, was at an advanced stage, with an arbitration hearing before former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo and retired Appeal Court justices Noel Hurt and Ian Farlam having been scheduled to take place in 2014.

According to Meeran, the case was very strong. “I am confident that should it have gone to arbitration, we would have succeeded,” he stated.

The claimants’ lawyers believe this settlement should guide the mining industry in the establishment of an industrywide settlement scheme to compensate all silicosis sufferers, which, Meeran noted, was of utmost urgency and long overdue.

“Although there is no final determination and, technically, no legal precedent from which to work, we hope that the signal the settlement sends creates a significant impetus towards the settlement of all silicosis cases and also assists all other ongoing litigations, including the class actions against several gold mining companies,” he said.

The claimants’ lawyers are also actively involved in ongoing silicosis claims on behalf of other gold mineworkers. The Legal Resources Centre is part of the legal team working on a class action that is to be consolidated shortly, while Leigh Day and Garratt Mbuyisa Neale are representing about 4 000 former mineworkers who have filed individual claims against AASA, both in the UK and South Africa.

The 23 claims in the AASA litigation arose from the contraction of silicosis and silicotuberculosis allegedly caused by AASA’s negligent failure to ensure that dust levels at its mines were adequately controlled.

Miners with silicosis have a greatly increased risk of contracting tuberculosis, a disease that is endemic in rural areas and to which former and current migrant miners from these areas are, therefore, especially vulnerable. Epidemic rates of silicosis and tuberculosis have occurred in black South African gold miners. The combination of silicosis and tuberculosis – silicotuberculosis – is serious and often fatal.