AN elderly man has lost his battle against the fatal lung disease asbestosis and with it a R2 million law suit against a cement manufacturer he claimed exposed him to lethal asbestos dust. Nelspruit attorney, Richard Spoor, said carpenter Stephanus Johannes Kleynhans, 70, had worked with products from cement manufacuturer, Everite Limited, for 40 years before contracting the disease. With the support of his wife, Ann, Kleynhans sued the firm, but when she died of breast cancer in November last year, his health failed rapidly and he died a month later. “Until then he had been fighting to stay alive long enough to see the matter go to trial, but he lost the will to live after his wife’s death,” said Spoor. He said without Kleynhans’s testimony, the claim against Everite Limited could not continue and the action was withdrawn. “But further claims against the asbestos manufacturer are pending,” added Spoor.