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By Wendell Roelf
CAPE TOWN Aug 21 (Reuters) – South Africa’s leading gold
miners are facing a potential lawsuit on behalf of thousands of
workers who claim they contracted silicosis, a lung disease,
through the companies’ negligence.
A South African lawyer filed the first papers on Tuesday
against AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields and
Harmony, in a preliminary step to determine whether the
court recognizes the case as a class action.
“If the certification is granted we anticipate that this may
be the largest damages suit in the history of this country, in
the tens of billions of rand possibly,” lawyer Charles Abrahams,
who represents more than 3,000 mostly former miners, said.
The mining companies had declined to comment in detail ahead
of the filing. A spokesman for Gold Fields said on Tuesday he
would not comment, while officials at the other two firms were
not immediately available.
The 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.
Silicosis is a disease that causes shortness of breath, a
persistent cough and chest pains and makes people highly
susceptible to tuberculosis, which kills. It has no known cure.
Abrahams said the claim was separate, but similar, to that
of fellow lawyer, Richard Spoor, who represents several thousand
more claimants. In March, Spoor said he would soon file his
class action papers against the same mining companies cited by
Abrahams.
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