If you are suffering a health problem and you think your working environment may be to blame, you should seek legal advice immediately. This point is illustrated by a case in which an alleged victim of industrial deafness went without a penny in compensation after he delayed too long before taking legal action.

Save for a two-year break, in which he served in the RAF, the 76-year-old man had worked for 35 years – between 1953 and 1988 – in a British Rail locomotive workshop and said that he had been exposed to high noise levels throughout. His old age had been blighted by severe hearing loss and ringing in his ears.

However, it was only in 2011 that he launched proceedings against BRB (Residuary) Limited (BRB), the company which inherited the liabilities of long defunct British Rail. He faced arguments that he had left it far too late to pursue a claim, the time limit which usually applies in personal injury cases being just three years from the date on which an injury was sustained or, in cases such as this, three years from the date on which a worker becomes aware, or ought to have known, that they have developed an injury as a result of harmful exposure in the course of their work. However, a judge had allowed him to proceed with his claim.

In upholding BRB's challenge to that decision, the Court of Appeal noted that the man had begun complaining to his GP about hearing loss as long ago as 1982. He could reasonably have been expected to have 'made the connection' between his hearing problems and workplace noise by 1997 at the latest. In those circumstances, the time limit applied and his claim had to be dismissed.