In October 2006 the case of Thembekile Mankayi versus AngloGold Ashanti, a subsidiary of Anglo American, was filed in the Johannesburg High Court. Mr Mankayi had for sixteen years worked as a gold miner at the Vaal Reefs Mine and then been dismissed in 1995 because of ill health. Suffering from silicosis and tuberculosis, for which he was seeking compensation, Mankayi claimed that AngloGold knew or should have known that silica dust causes serious lung disease and that it failed to protect him from the risk of injury. It had long been assumed that the various Mines Acts stretching back to 1911 precluded litigation, and Mankayi had first had to establish his right to sue his former employer. His claim was dismissed by the High Court and then by the Supreme Court of Appeal. Finally, in March 2011, Mankayi was given leave by the Constitutional Court to have his case heard. Tragically, he died a week before the ruling that found in his favour. In spite of his death, the decision is likely to precipitate a class action involving hundreds of thousands of miners from South Africa, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Mozambique and Botswana, all of which supplied labour to Anglo American mines. The industry's defence is that it has been as much the victim of failed science as Thembekile Mankayi – that the mining houses, which include some of the world's most powerful corporations, had no knowledge of any risk to their employees.