Judge rejects widow's suit against tobacco company

A British widow's 13-year battle to force one of the world's biggest tobacco companies to pay compensation for the death of her husband from lung cancer ended in failure yesterday.

Margaret McTear, 60, launched her historic bid against Imperial Tobacco in 1993 as her husband, Alfred, a 60 cigarettes-a-day smoker, lay dying in the family home in Glasgow.

She argued that the company knew that cigarettes killed and that they hid this information from the general public for as long as they could, condemning thousands of people to an early and preventable death.

She sued Imperial for £500,000 ($1.3m) but insisted the case was not about the money but the principle.

The case was the first of its kind to reach a supreme court anywhere in Europe and scores of other potential litigants from among the millions harmed by smoking were anxiously awaiting the outcome.

Smokers in the US and Italy have successfully sued tobacco manufacturers. But yesterday, on World No Smoking Day, judge Lord Nimmo Smith ruled that Margaret McTear and her legal team had failed in their bid to find the company liable for his death.

The case was heard in 2003 and it took the judge 15 months to write his 350,000-word ruling, delivered yesterday.

The verdict dismayed tobacco campaigners but Mrs McTear from Beith in Ayrshire, admitted that she had not expected to win.

Speaking outside the Court of Session in Edinburgh, she said: "I'm a bit disappointed but all the publicity over the years has highlighted the dangers of smoking and that's a victory in itself."

Her solicitor, Cameron Fyfe, said the case might have been won if Mrs McTear had been granted legal aid. She was turned down seven times and her lawyers eventually took the case forward on a no-win-no fee basis.

Mr Fyfe said: "It's always very difficult for us without legal aid, whereas Imperial Tobacco have the funds. If we'd had legal aid it might have been a different decision. You can lead all the witnesses you'd like to and you can use all the productions you'd like to use."

Alfred McTear, a father of three, started smoking in 1964 when there were no warnings on cigarette packs and by the time they appeared in 1971 he was already addicted.

His habit grew until he was smoking 60 a day. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1992 and died, aged 48, in 1993, having given evidence for the case from his sick bed seven days before his death.

It emerged during the case that he had a criminal past and had attacked his wife and children during drinking binges.

Yesterday, the judge rejected the case on every count saying Mr McTear would have been aware of the dangers of smoking and had chosen to ignore them, "as with many other aspects of his life".

He said: "I am satisfied that at all material times, and in particular by 1964, the general public in the United Kingdom, including smokers and potential smokers, were well aware of the health risks associated with smoking, and in particular of the view that smoking could cause lung cancer.

He continued: "All the evidence is that Mr McTear would have started smoking when he did, and would have continued to smoke, for the same length of time and in the same quantities, as he in fact did."

Imperial Tobacco said it hoped the decision would deter others from making similar claims.

Commenting on the judgement, Cancer Research UK's director of tobacco control, Jean King, said: "We are very disappointed by this judgement. It is time we stopped blaming smokers for becoming addicted to tobacco and started blaming the tobacco companies that actively promote their products."

- INDEPENDENT