Victims suffering from the fatal asbestos-related lung disease mesothelioma, and families of those who have already died, will now no longer qualify for the compensation they would hope to receive.
This comes after the House of Lords yesterday upheld three test appeals, effectively brought by company insurers, which limits the liability of employers to compensate asbestos dust victims and their families.
The Law Lords heard arguments that damages awards should be limited in cases involving several former employers, none of whom could be specifically blamed for the onset of the fatal asbestos-related lung disease mesothelioma.
The decision will affect compensation claims running into millions of pounds and will affect hundreds of people across Yorkshire.
The judgment means mesothelioma victims will not get full compensation through the courts unless they sue all former employers who exposed them to asbestos.
Negligent companies will not be liable to pay 100 per cent compensation if other culpable firms have gone out of business and their insurers cannot be found.
Following this decision Paula Walker from the Sheffield and Rotherham Asbestos Group (SARAG) said: "This is nothing more than a cost saving exercise by employers and their insurance companies. It sends out the completely wrong message that companies are not wholly to blame for bad working practices that kill.
"This decision will have a massive impact on the quality of life of people suffering from the most horrifying symptoms, whose only crime was breathing the air at their place of work."
A leading Yorkshire-based expert said the decision penalised cancer sufferers in the county with only months to live and gave the benefit of the doubt to companies guilty of negligence.
Adrian Budgen, head of the industrial diseases group at Sheffield-based Irwin Mitchell, said: "Given the that mesothelioma symptoms take between 20 and 50 years to manifest themselves, many negligent companies have gone out of business by the time they become apparent.
"This blame apportionment argument by companies will therefore mean people with only months to live and their families will lose out, through no fault of their own."
The leading test case heard by the Law Lords yesterday concerned Sylvia Barker, 58, of Holywell, Flintshire, who was awarded £152,000 in the High Court three years ago for the death of her husband, Vernon.
Mr Barker died, aged 57, in 1996. He had worked for John Summers and Sons at the Shotton steelworks on Deeside.
He was exposed to asbestos while he was employed there as well as for another company and for short periods during 20 years of self-employment. The liabilities of Summers have been inherited by Corus UK.
Mrs Barker's damages will now be reassessed by the High Court to reflect the proportion of blame attributable to his time with Summers rather than 100 per cent liability for his illness and death.
It is estimated there are close to 2,000 deaths from mesothelioma a year in the UK.
It caused 2,787 fatalities between 1981 and 1985 but 7,476 from 1996 to 2000 and experts say its impact has not yet peaked.
Asbestos-related illnesses kill more than 4,000 people each year in the UK, more than the number of fatalities in road traffic accidents.
The last six years have seen a series of generic legal challenges by employers and their liability insurers aimed at cutting compensation payments to asbestos victims.
emma.dunlop@ypn.co.uk

Compensation claim in limbo

Helen Rowson knows only too well the trauma asbestos related cancer can cause.
For 18 months she and her father Peter, 73, had to watch her 70-year-old mother Anne die a harrowing death.
Yesterday's ruling has now left a huge question mark over whether she and her father will be able to claim any compensation following her mother's death.
For years Mrs Rowson (senior) worked on a chicken farm at Winterton, near Scunthorpe, near where she lived.
Every day she had to swill down the chicken runs using high-power diesel fuelled washers.
But the units were roofed and lined with asbestos. Her family believe that is where she was exposed to the deadly dust, which later caused the fatal mesothelioma. "It took months to get the diagnosis for my mother," said Miss Rowson, 42.
"But when we did it was obvious that was where she had come into contact with the asbestos.
"My mother began prosecuting the company before she died in September 2003.
"This is not just about compensating people who have the illness but also those left behind. No one has any idea just how much it affects the rest of the family.
"These people were in employment, and that's why employers should be made to pay compensation.
"But this ruling leaves a question mark over the whole issue. For us it wastes years of not just our time, but our solicitor's time as well."