I am trying to track down the full judgment that was made in the case
of mine workers v. British Coal (1998?) in which it was agreed that
very substantial compensation should be paid for men who suffered from
pneumoconiosis.

I believe you are confusing two major judgemnts against British Coal.
The first one was a no-fault pneumoconiosis compensation scheme.

"In 1974 British Coal introduced a no fault scheme for pneumoconiosis,
which has paid out £165m." (as of 1998)

This compensation scheme was limited to pneumoconiosis only. Since
then, the judgement in 1998 opened up the doors for other respiratory
diseases when:

"Mr Justice Turner awarded the six test case miners up to £10,000 each
for pain, suffering and disability from emphysema and chronic
bronchitis."

It is my understanding that the old pneumoconiosis compensation scheme
was combined with the 1998 judgement to set up one compensation scheme
to process repiratory and repetitive vibration shock injuries. As of
the March 31st deadline, 566,000 people have registered respiratory
claims to participate in the compensation scheme, and 138,000 have
been paid in full with total damages paid adding up to over 1.2
billion pounds. This is including pneumoconiosis, emphysema, and other
respiratory diseases.

For the average payout, here is a chart to-date of the payments since
the 1998 High Court judgement:

?Main statistics June 2004
RESPIRATORY
CLAIMS REGISTERED 566,000*
CLAIMS SETTLED IN FULL 138,000
INTERIM PAYMENTS 74,000
TOTAL DAMAGES PAID £1.1bn 
* Excludes minimal information claims which need to be verified as not
duplicate claims

Value band (£) 	Offers made 	% 
Up to £5k 		85,779		68%
£5k to £10k 	13,897		11%
£10+k to £20k 	13,040		10%
£20+k to £50k 	11,644		9%
£50+k to £100k 	2,382			2%
£100+k 		322			0%

Unfortunately I could not find data to differentiate settlement based
upon specific respiratory disease on the Coal Health Claims website of
the Department of Trade and Industry.

Here are the links to further information to back up what I've said here:

http://www.dti.gov.uk/coalhealth/index.htm
http://www.dti.gov.uk/coalhealth/10.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/49885.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/49973.stm
://www.google.com/search?q=IRISC+compensation+scheme

Thank you for your question.

skermit-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by williamsbg-ga on 07 Oct 2004 03:24 PDT

What I want is a transcript of the actual judgement as delivered at
the end of the case. I seem to remember that it was an exceedingly
good epidemiological analysis of a rather complex problem. Do you have
any idea where I can find it? Thanks for your help.

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Clarification of Answer by skermit-ga on 07 Oct 2004 06:14 PDT

Bingo!

Sorry I misunderstood your request. It was a lot easier to find the
actual judgement than to compile the rest of that information. Hopet
his helps.

http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/judgmentsfiles/j139/qb_bcrdl.htm

skermit-ga

Perfect! I shall use this service again.