The Supreme Court has reduced to £45,000 an award of £60,000 made by the High Court to a plumber who was exposed to asbestos dust while working in Leinster House.
The High Court had awarded Mr Dermot Swaine general damages of £45,000, plus £15,000 aggravated damages.
In a reserved judgment yesterday, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal of the Commissioners of Public Works in relation to the amount of aggravated damages - £15,000.
Three months ago, the Supreme Court unanimously allowed an appeal by the Commissioners against an award of £48,700 made to another man, Mr Stephen Fletcher, who was exposed to asbestos dust while working in the basement of Leinster House in the late 1980s.
It was predicted the Fletcher decision would save the State from paying out huge sums in compensation claims by public sector workers with health fears arising from their exposure to asbestos dust.
In dealing with the Swaine case yesterday, the Supreme Court said it was in a different category to the Fletcher case.
In the latter, the Supreme Court had said the law should not be extended to allow plaintiffs to recover damages for psychiatric injury "resulting from an irrational fear of contracting a disease because of their negligent exposure to health risks by their employers, where their risk is characterised by their medical advisers as very remote".
Mr Swaine worked in the Leinster House complex and, to a lesser extent, in the then Department of Industry and Commerce in around 1981-82.
He was exposed over a lengthy period to large quantities of asbestos dust.
Giving the Supreme Court's decision on Mr Swaine's case, the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Keane, said the exposure had no immediate consequence for him in terms of his physical health.
It did, however, expose him to the risk, described by his physician as "very remote", of contracting a disease called mesothelioma.
That disease, although relatively uncommon, was lethal when contracted, Mr Justice Keane said.
As a result of becoming aware of that risk, Mr Swaine was suffering at the time of the High Court trial from what was described as "a chronic reactive anxiety neurosis".
The High Court had found that the condition had been caused by the negligence of the defendants in exposing Mr Swaine to the risk of contracting mesothelioma, the Chief Justice said.
In the Swaine case and also in three other cases, the defence had either expressly or by implication withdrawn any plea denying liability to pay damages and the cases proceeded as assessments of damages only, the Chief Justice noted.
Accordingly, they fell into a different category than the Fletcher case, where the denial of liability to pay damages had never been withdrawn and the trial judge had heard arguments as to liability, if any.
In the present case, although the defendants had admitted their liability to pay damages, the issue as to whether they were liable to pay aggravated damages was fully contested by them, Mr Justice Keane noted.