Case against James Hardie

One thing I never mentioned in my blog up until now was that I had a legal claim that was due to go before the Supreme Court against James Hardie. I didn't mention it because I wasn't sure what I could say and was scared that I might say something that could prejudice the case so I thought it was better not to mention it until it was over. If anyone read about it from some of the newspapers on Thursday you will know it is all over.  And sorry if the whole thing came as a bit of a surprise to many of you.

Well the case was due to start on Thursday morning and while we were sitting in court, James Hardie's people ask if the judge could come half an hour later, and then their people spoke to my people (Slater and Gordon) and then my people spoke to me and this went back and forth for a while until we all agreed on a settlement. Now part of the settlement is that I am not allowed to disclose how much the settlement was so please don't ask me.

My father was due to give evidence at my trial that afternoon but not only was he in severe pain due to a pinched nerve and was walking around on crutches but my parents were also about to move the next day to a retirement village so they were right in the middle of packing up their whole house. The timing couldn't have been worse for them for the court case so a settlement was very welcome indeed.

Also very welcome the same day was news that Alimta had been recommended by PBAC for listing on the PBS. We got news about it straight after the settlement while were having a drink with my legal team. I mentioned that it was only going 'public' on December 14th and that was still the plan on Thursday but I guess it didn't stay 'private' very long.

Later that day I was contacted by a couple of journalists about it.  While a lot of the questions I was asked were about what I thought of Alimta, I don't the articles even ended up mentioning any of that but just talked about me and my settlement.

Here are links to the article from The Age and from the Herald Sun.

I will still as promised post about my recent trip away.