• Judgment: Metro is condemned to pay 371,000 euros to the family of a deceased worker for exposure to asbestos
  • Metro: The first worker who was recognized asbestos occupational disease dies

The widow of the first worker of the Madrid Metro who was recognized as a professional disease for her exposure to asbestos, Eugenia Martín, will have to appear at a trial next October to defend the 50% increase in the salary benefit that her husband I should have received in life "for breach of security measures" by the company. Justice had already ruled last year that his family be compensated with 371,733 euros for damages after accrediting that for almost three decades his work in maintaining trains with parts containing this highly toxic material without any protection.

The suburban has now filed a lawsuit against the National Institute of Health, which determined the payment of this surcharge, the Treasury of the Social Security and subsidiarily against the heirs of the worker who died of cancer in October 2018, his wife and daughter. In its letter, the company requests the “nullity of law, in its absence, the nullity” of said recognition, claiming that there is no “causal relationship” between the labor risk violation detected by the Labor Inspectorate following this case - for which he imposed a fine of 191,000 euros- and the pulmonary pathology of Julián Martín.

He is denounced by his widow, who will also have to testify on February 6 in the criminal case against seven former labor security officers of the Metro that continues in parallel to this new process in court. "We are going to claim what corresponds to us economically, although for us it is much more important that there is justice and that those responsible pay it and go to jail," says Eugenia Martín in a telephone conversation with EL MUNDO.

In the suburban, they argue that "the claim is against Social Security, not against the family", even if "subsidiarily" the heirs of the deceased worker are involved in the lawsuit. They also point out that the objective is to "establish in a reliable manner what is the percentage of benefits recharge" to be paid.

"It's not that you don't want to pay," says a Metro spokesman, who says that, in fact, Social Security will be "immediately provided" with the amount that would correspond to that 50% increase - which should have been also transferred to the widowhood pension of Eugenia Martín- pending the judicial resolution.

Up to now, the occupational disease due to exposure to asbestos has been recognized by three workers who became ill while they were active - two of them already deceased - and two other retirees .

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