Asbestos killer. The Cagliari Court of Appeal has ordered the Region to compensate the widow and children of a worker from Urzulei who died of lung cancer in 2013 with €720,000 plus his pension. According to the ruling, the disease was caused by prolonged exposure to asbestos fibers. The man had worked as a specialized laborer in the repair and maintenance of public water supply systems , employed by ESAF from 1973 to 1998. In recent weeks, the panel of appeal judges (presiding Maria Luisa Scarpa, with Daniela Coinu and Giorgio Murru as associate judges) upheld the first-instance ruling issued in 2022 by Lanusei Court Judge Giada Rutili.
The diagnosis came in 2012, when the man had been retired for 14 years, almost a death sentence: asbestosis, a disease that affects the lungs and is linked to contact, even indirect, with asbestos fibers. The pensioner was found to be suffering from a serious tumor that doctors had linked to asbestos exposure resulting from his thirty years of work . There were no other causes that could have contributed to the onset of the disease. On June 10, 2013, the pensioner filed a petition with INAIL to have it recognized as an occupational disease. The request was rejected by the Institute. A few months later, he died amid excruciating pain. In 2017, his wife and children decided to file a labor court lawsuit against the Region (which had taken over the legal relationships held by ESAF in 2010) and INAIL. According to the family and their lawyer, the employer was responsible for failing to take all appropriate measures to prevent the onset of cancer: only since the early 1990s had the former worker, along with his colleagues, been wearing protective masks provided by ESAF.
The Region appeared in court and, after the first instance, appealed, arguing that there had been exposure to the reported carcinogen and, in any case, the performance of tasks that could have involved contact with asbestos fibers. However, the judge held a different view. "Only starting in 1991," the ruling states, "did the employer require workers to carry out their work wearing protective masks: for 20 years, the former worker was exposed to the inhalation of asbestos fibers without any protective measures. It must therefore be held that the onset of the reported illness was attributable to the Region's fault, with the appellants consequently entitled to compensation for damages."