Damages awarded to workers exposed to asbestos at building sites

small money. families wreaked by hard working relatives.

this problem is far greater. ever seen a contraction worker wearing earmuffs, mask or safety glasses or steel capped boots?

Again, peanuts in Japan for Worker compensation, whilst those who run the Companies live in Luxury. One wonders why there's so little Social unrest here in Japan.

"....The government has insisted that the risk of asbestos was not known in the past and that the state took proper steps based on the available information....."

Another crock of a lie.

First authenticated scientific reports of asbestos danger to human health began appearing in the 1930s.

The American EPA classified it as a known carcinogen in 1971.

A myriad of published data was available all concluding that asbestos was killing 10,000s.

Japan (along with many other countries) continued widespread use of asbestos with negligible health & safety regulations and protocols for the industry.

In fact in the 1970s & 80s Japan was the 2nd largest user of asbestos in the world, only behind Soviet Russia.

It's use began to decline in the 90s (but still was the largest in the developed world) as the emerging countries on their "roads to modernism" ramped up the usage to the detriment of their populations.

So being an industry worth billions in Japan for decades and decades, was no doubt the major factor in refusing to acknowledge the dangers of asbestos to humans.

The court award of 3.7 million is an insult to the dignity of the plaintiffs.

And this comment  -   "....After the ruling, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare's department in charge of asbestos issues said it was a "harsh" decision. The ministry will decide how to respond after consulting with relevant ministries, it said..."  -  should be derided for it's callousness.

The American EPA classified it as a known carcinogen in 1971.

The original concerns focused on certain uses and application methods, but not a complete ban. Oddly, even today there isn't a complete ban on asbestos use in the USA.

The Tokyo High Court ruled the state should have obligated construction workers to wear protective dust masks by 1981 at the latest

That raises the question of whether one should be able to sue the state for not enacting legislation or creating regulations. In this case, shouldn't the construction companies be the target for receiving compensation?

@browny1 can show me how you arrived at 3.7M, I have 370M div / 63 = 5.9M-ish, thanks

macv - thanks.

my number was just a lazy conversion of repeating the total for all plaintiffs ￥370million = $3.7 million.