SOUTH Africa’s South Gauteng High Court has granted current and former mineworkers permission to proceed with a class action for damages against mining companies for lung diseases contracted while working.
South Gauteng High Court Deputy Judge President Phineas Mojapelo gave the go ahead for as many as 500,000 current and former workers as well as families of mineworkers who have died of silicosis, tuberculosis and lung disease to launch a class action against over 30 companies.
“The only way justice can prevail in the cases of individual mineworkers or their dependants is if they are afforded an opportunity to pursue their claims by at least having significant parts of it determined through a class action.
Further, in our judgement it is in the interests of the mining companies that the many common issues as well as the common evidence … be dealt with in a class action proceeding,” Mojapelo said in his judgement.
Mining companies said they were studying the judgement and would decide individually whether to appeal or not.
Anglo American (South Africa) and AngloGold Ashanti have already agreed to pay R464m to 4,365 people who contracted the disease while in their employ.
