For the Court of Cassation (17438/2012) the tumor caused by the use of the mobile phone is an occupational disease.
The object of judgment case is that of a leader who, by using protracted for work (5-6 hours a day) for 12 years, mobile phones or cordless phones, had contracted the Gasser’s ganglion neuroma, a tumor that affects cranial nerves, that particular sound.
The request for recognition of occupational diseases (*), the INAIL had brought through technical consultations that, while not excluding a priori the causal link between prolonged use of cell phones and the onset of cancer, had admitted in the event, rather, as a contributory cause of radio frequencies.
The Court instead recognised the professional disease pension – tabellata (**) – invalidity provided at 80%, claiming that the source could be considered inappropriate professional in the presence of a significant degree of responsibility, as well as supported by the person concerned who had “brought the evidence admissible and ritually deducted”. So you are also evaluated the “probabilistic” conclusions of the technical consultant on the issue of causation, and has resorted to “ex officio every initiative directed to acquire additional elements (the party but also on exposure to risk factors).
It was considered that “the professional nature of the disease can be deduced with a high degree of probability:
the type of processing;
by the nature of the equipment present in the work environment;
the duration of the work;
the absence of other factors, alternative or competing work activities which could constitute causes of disease “.
(*) The occupational disease is a “harmful event to the person who manifests itself so
-slow, gradual-progressive-, – unintentionally – on the occasion of the work “.
Normally the medico-legal method for recognition of an occupational disease
identifies the agent job or working professional that you suggested as responsible for the disease; acknowledges the scientific evidence of detrimental substance and capacity of the job (this must be attested by national or International Organizations); recognises the work of worker exposure to significant time for duration and quantity; recognizes the type of illness the same commonly induced by substance or agent related to the job; recognize the manifestation of the disease after several years of exposure.
(**) Occupational diseases are only those listed in the tables of occupational diseases in industry (85) and in agriculture (24) – O.j. No. 169 of July 21, 2008.
Info: Civil Appeal No. 17438 October 12, 2012.
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