SCOTLAND TODAY
Mother sues landlord saying damp conditions caused son’s asthma
A Glasgow mother is taking her landlord to court in the first legal action of its kind, claiming the damp conditions in her home gave her seven-year-old son asthma. Linda McKenzie is suing both the city council and Glasgow housing association for failing in its duty of care. The move comes as Scotland is named as the asthma capital of the world.
A warm damp environment is a breeding ground for dust mites. Linda McKenzie from Ibrox in Glasgow claims her flat is riddled. The poor conditions, she says, triggered her son Richard's asthma. She has now been granted legal aid to sue her current and previous landlords for £50,000.
The city council and Glasgow Housing Association are refusing to comment on the case but Linda McKenzie's lawyer says it could be just the tip of the iceberg. If the link between dustmites and asthma is established in court then it could open the floodgates to an avalanche of compensation claims.
Mike Dailly from the Govan Law Centre in Glasgow said: "Previously we've established that damp living conditions can make asthma worse. What we're trying to do in this case is move the barriers forward and establish legally the causal link between damp housing conditions and asthma. And if we can do that the value of these cases are going to shoot up dramatically."
This legal first comes in the wake of a report today which found that Scotland has the highest level of asthma in the world. Nearly 20% of the population are diagnosed with the condition. More than 40,000 Scots have symptoms so severe, they live in constant fear of a fatal attack.
Asthma sufferer Lorraine McNally said: "Last year I did go into cardiac arrest and my heart did stop for nearly six minutes. They did get me back but they had to say to my parents that if I did wake up, that I would more or less be brain damaged, that's due to lack of oxygen to the brain for that long. But I did wake up the next day, I was out of hospital within a week. It's a miracle really."
With effective medication, Lorraine is now able now control her symptoms. While significant advances have been made in the treatment of asthma, experts say much more also needs to be done to prevent the condition from developing in the first place.
Related Links
Scotlands Health on the Web
Asthma UK
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l Linda McKenzie asthma legal case video report in Quicktime format.
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04/05/2004 18:00