A court date in January has been set for a preliminary hearing into the proposed group action on behalf of miners who suffer from a chronic knee condition allegedly caused by working underground.

The litigation is being led by five solicitors’ firms which have already earned a fortune from the Government’s £7.5 billion scheme to compensate miners for chest diseases and a crippling hand condition.

If their planned handful of “miners’ knee” test cases succeed, tens of thousands of retired workers may be able to claim damages. The costs would have to be met by the Department of Trade and Industry, which took responsibility for British Coal’s liabilities after privatisation.

Estimates suggest that the final bill to the taxpayer may stretch to more than £100 million. The Government declined to comment yesterday on its planned reaction.

It has already, however, ordered an external inquiry into the DTI’s running of the chest and vibration white finger claims, which began in 1999 and have developed into the world’s largest personal injury compensation schemes.

Funding for the litigation is being provided by the National Union of Mineworkers and the Durham Area NUM, with £10 million committed to the preliminary costs.

The five law firms involved, Thompsons, Raleys, Hugh James, Irwin Mitchell and Graysons, have earned a combined £240 million in DTI fees for settling tens of thousands of chest and finger claims.

The new claim focuses on two knee conditions: osteoarthritis, in which cartilage is worn away, and damage to the menisci, cartilage tissue which acts as a shock absorber in the knee joint. The symptoms are pain, swelling, clicking and locking of the knee, and the conditions can be progressive and permanent.

The aim of the litigation is to establish that the miners and former miners developed the condition as a direct result of their work in the coal industry.

Many who worked underground spent up to six hours a day kneeling in sludge and cold water or crawling along a coalface less than 3ft (90cm)high. Knee injuries have also been linked to carrying heavy weights.

If the knee conditions are found to be work-related, the union would also have to prove a date of “guilty knowledge”, after which British Coal was aware of the problem but did not do enough to prevent it. Anthony Patterson, a partner at Thompsons, said that considerable preliminary work had already been completed and that the litigation had “a reasonable chance of success”.

More than 1,000 miners have been in contact with Thompsons to register potential claims. It has also been reported that more than 10,000 former miners in Nottinghamshire alone suffer from osteoarthritis in the knee.

“A lot of the spade work’s been done, experts’ reports etc, looking at the various issues involved, and we’re now waiting for an exchange of documents between the parties,” Mr Patterson said.

“There are a lot of hurdles to cross, but the best-case scenario would be that we run a number of successful test cases.

“Whether that would lead to a mass compensation scheme we don’t yet know, but there could be significant numbers of miners who may be entitled to compensation.”

Mr Patterson emphasised that the action did not include bursitis, a knee condition known in mining circles as “beat knee” and more commonly — but less masculinely — as housemaid’s knee, which usually resolves itself after a period away from work.

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