Labourer seeks compensation of Dhs5 million from his company in Abu Dhabi

Aya El Deeb, Correspondent

A labourer filed a lawsuit demanding the company he worked for to pay him Dhs5 million in compensation for the material and moral damages he sustained due to work.

The Abu Dhabi Court of Cassation upheld the rejection of the case by the Court of First Instance.

Details date back to earlier when the labourer filed a lawsuit demanding his company to pay him Dhs3,500,000 (Dhs3.5 million) in compensation for the body injury and the earnings he lost due to the injury. He also demanded Dhs1,500,000 (DHs1.5) in compensation for the moral damages he sustained, with the legal interest at 12%.

In his lawsuit, the appellant explained that he joined his work as a maintenance technician for welding metals by electrical method using oxyacetylene, and due to the lack of healthy and safety procedures and precautions, he contracted lung cancer and changes in the lumbar vertebrae of the spine which made him unable to move.

The Court of First Instance rejected the lawsuit, so the applicant appealed the verdict, and the Court of Appeal rejected it. He then appealed it again to the Court of Cassation, that also rejected it.

The court reportedly assigned an expert to prove the appellant’s claim, and a specialised committee of three experts to review the submitted medical reports and to indicate the extent of the company’s commitment to apply the standards and controls of the tools and equipment used by the appellant while performing his work.

The experts’ report affirmed that the company was not at fault and that the applicant was not diagnosed with a cancerous tumor. The report explained that there was no medical evidence affirming the diagnosis but a mass in the thoracic glands appeared in the axial imaging.

The committee added that the applicant’s file was transferred to an Oncology Committee to decide on the future of his treatment plan.

The Oncology committee indicted that the mass was benign and there was no need for further tests or treatment, but only a periodic follow-up. It also explained the applicant’s spine problem and the subsequent surgery had no connection with the mass, but only a chronic problem in the spine which takes place with age.