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SUPPLIED / Stuff
Deanna Trevarthen passed away after being diagnosed with mesothelioma. She is seen here with her father and family.
Four years after she died of a deadly asbestos condition from hugging her father, whether Deanna Trevarthen should have ACC coverage goes back to court.
The Accident Compensation Corporation lost an appeal to Superior Court last year after Judge Jill Mallon said that Trevarthen’s condition, mesothelioma, was caused by inhaling asbestos fibers and that if that was an accident, then it was covered.
Trevarthen’s father was an electrician and she hugged him when he came home in his work clothes and sometimes played at workplaces.
To get coverage under the accident compensation law, she had to show that the mesothelioma that killed her was a personal injury caused by an accident.
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Trevarthen, 45, was one of the youngest in New Zealand to die of an aggressive form of cancer directly related to asbestos.
When he died in 2016, he had claimed ACC for a variety of benefits, including treatment costs, weekly compensation, a lump sum, and funeral costs.
His sister-in-law, Angela Calver, who is the executor and trustee of his estate, took up the battle after Trevathen’s death.
SUPPLIED / Stuff
A simple hug between father and daughter was the probable cause of the cancer that killed Deanna Trevarthen.
On Wednesday, ACC attorney Paul Radich QC said it was accepted that the fibers had entered his body and were there, but questioned whether they caused damage to the body when he entered.
“Perhaps the answer is yes, but evidence is needed.”
He said that evidence was the missing link which would mean that there could be coverage such as an accident.
“Did inhaling the fiber cause damage, itself, or was it the fact that there was no damage and then a process of some kind?”
Calver’s attorney, Beatrix Woodhouse, said she did not see that the Supreme Court ruling, if allowed, would affect anyone other than someone with mesothelioma.
He said that just because the asbestos-related disease could be latent did not mean it did not exist at the time ACC coverage would be affected.
The court reserved its decision.
After the hearing, Calver said that Wednesday was the fifth anniversary of Trevarthen’s first round of chemotherapy.
He also said they were still locked in a dispute with ACC over the cost of a specialty drug, Keytruda, for which the family had raised thousands of dollars.
