Decision reserved in smoking case

The court action against two tobacco companies, on behalf of lung cancer victim Janice Pou, closed in the High Court at Auckland yesterday.

Janice Pou died of lung cancer in 2002, aged 51, but her children, Brandon and Kasey Pou, last year won the right to continue their mother's battle to claim more than $310,000 in damages against British American Tobacco (NZ) and WD & HO Wills.

Justice Graham Lang yesterday reserved his decision.

In the first week of the case video footage was shown to the court of Mrs Pou giving her evidence from her hospital bed in Dunedin the month before she died.

Mrs Pou claimed when she began smoking in 1967 the tobacco companies had failed to warn her of the potential health dangers.

Health warnings on cigarette packets first appeared in 1974 in New Zealand, seven years after Mrs Pou lit up her first Capstan cigarette.

Smokefree Coalition director Mark Peck said the Pou case was a true David and Goliath battle.

"Even though Janice Pou knew the case was unlikely to be concluded in her lifetime, she spent her final months seeking justice.

"What made her stand all the more remarkable was that she was taking on a member of the world's second largest multinational tobacco group - British American Tobacco."

ASH director Becky Freeman said Mrs Pou and her family were also battling an interesting social phenomenon - a public that at times seemed to be backing the tobacco industry.

"People seem to be very reluctant to point the finger at cigarette companies," she said, "even though they have been responsible for the deaths of around 170,000 New Zealanders over the past 50 years."

- NZPA, STAFF REPORTER