Zurich Insurance has successfully defended a mesothelioma claim after a court found the claimant's decades-old memories fell short of proving asbestos exposure.
The High Court ruling, handed down on April 24, 2026, in Howell v Pile Construction (Southern) Limited & Anor [2026] EWHC 949 (KB), turned entirely on a question that insurers handling long-tail liability books know well - can a claimant's memory, standing alone, carry the weight of proof more than 50 years after the alleged exposure?
In this case, the answer was no.
William Walter Howell, 71, was diagnosed with epithelioid malignant mesothelioma in February 2024. He traced his illness to a six-week summer labouring job in 1972 with Pile Construction (Southern) Limited, a company dissolved in 1986. His claim was brought directly against Zurich Insurance Company Limited, which accepted it was the relevant insurer under the Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 2010. The parties agreed on the value of damages, so the only question at trial was whether Howell could show, on the balance of probabilities, that he had actually been exposed to asbestos on the job.
Howell said he spent the summer of 1972 handling large dusty sheets at a school he believed was Great Ballard School in Eartham, West Sussex. He described carrying unwrapped 6-by-4-foot sheets to carpenters who cut them indoors, sweeping up the resulting dust, and riding home in a dusty company van with other workers. He said a fellow worker told him the sheets were asbestos. He also described the dust as having "a distinctive asbestos smell" and said workers used broken pieces "over a flame as a food heating plate."
Zurich's investigation painted a different picture. A 2004-2005 asbestos survey of the school hall found no asbestos. The defendant's expert, Ms Tierney, visited the hall in person and found no physical traces of asbestos removal. The school's owner and the builder who extended the hall in the 1990s both confirmed that no boards were stripped out and no asbestos was encountered during that work.
The claimant's own descriptions also worked against him. Both experts agreed that asbestos does not have a distinctive smell and that asbestos insulating board could not serve as a food heating hotplate. Ms Tierney also challenged the idea that fire-proofing was even needed in a small, single-storey school hall with exposed timber beams - and noted that plasterboard, a cheaper and lighter fire-resistant alternative, had been available for decades before 1972.
The court also tracked how Howell's account shifted over the course of the litigation. His earliest signed account listed a different school, a different year, and described him cutting the sheets himself - details he later corrected. Two days before trial, his counsel acknowledged it was "less likely" the work took place at Great Ballard School. At the hearing, that position hardened to "unlikely." No alternative location was ever identified.
Deputy Judge O'Mahony, applying established principles on memory unreliability, dismissed the claim. He expressed sympathy for Howell and his family but concluded the evidence simply did not meet the required standard.
For insurers still managing the long tail of asbestos-related employer's liability, the case is a pointed reminder that thorough factual investigation - site visits, surveys, witness evidence, expert analysis - remains one of the most effective tools in the defence kit, even where coverage itself is not in dispute.
