Widow loses tobacco court case

A widow whose husband died from lung cancer has lost her court case against a leading tobacco firm.

Margaret McTear, from Beith in North Ayrshire, Scotland, had been seeking £500,000 damages from Imperial Tobacco, following the death of her husband Albert from lung cancer.

Albert McTear, a 60-a-day smoker, died at the age of 48 in 1993. He had begun smoking in 1964, seven years before health warnings were placed on cigarette packets in 1971. He began legal action against Imperial Tobacco for failing to put warnings on their cigarettes in January 1993, as he was dying from lung cancer. Mrs McTear continued the legal battle following his death in March 1993.

The case, the first of it kind to have reached a supreme court anywhere in Europe, took ten years to come to court. During the hearing at Edinburgh’s Court of Session, Mrs McTear said that the “glamorous” advertising of cigarettes in the 1960s had been to blame for her husband beginning to smoke. She also said that she felt that Imperial Tobacco had failed to provide warnings that smoking could lead to lung cancer and death.

Imperial Tobacco had denied that they were responsible for Mr McTear’s death.

At the Court of Session today, Lord Nimmo Smith said that he was satisfied that advertising had nothing to do with Mr McTear beginning to smoke and said that he had started to smoke because it was “socially acceptable”. He said: “Most young people started smoking as part of becoming adults.”

Mrs McTear said that she was “disappointed” by the verdict, but said that the case had helped to highlight the dangers of smoking.

Maureen Moore, chief executive of anti-smoking group ASH Scotland, also said the judgement was a “disappointment”. She said: “Today’s ruling is a set back for those who want to see the tobacco industry held responsible for cigarette related deaths due to the fact that they had failed to warn consumers about the dangers of their product.

“Imperial Tobacco still denies there is a link between smoking and lung cancer. Today we call on Imperial Tobacco to stop denying what the rest of the world accepts. Imperial Tobacco must accept that smoking cigarettes causes cancer and continues to kill millions of people around the world.”

In a statement, Imperial Tobacco said they were “pleased but not surprised” by today’s result. The statement said: “We regret that we have had to defend ourselves against what we always believed to be a speculative claim. We have never lost or settled any tobacco litigation and will continue to defend ourselves robustly against any further speculative claims.”

(KMcA/SP)