[Intl-tobacco] British smokers to launch suit (fwd)

[Robert Weissman]

British smokers to launch suit
by Anthony Browne / health editor
Source: The Guardian, Sunday, 7/16/00

Sick smokers are set to relaunch a huge lawsuit against the tobacco
industry in Britain, following an American jury's decision that cigarette
makers should pay out record multi-billion-dollar damages.

Five major US tobacco companies were ordered last week to pay $145 billion
- almost =A3100 billion - in punitive damages to sick Florida smokers.

A previous multi-million-pound lawsuit against tobacco companies in
Britain collapsed last February, when legal costs forced the solicitors
bringing the action to pull out. However, Clive Bates, the director of Ash
- Action on Smoking and Health - said that the case in Florida will prompt
sick smokers to relaunch their case.

'We had a setback in the UK last year when a class action failed. But the
big law firms will be looking at the United States and thinking, "If it
can work there, it will work here",' he said. 'There are astronomical
amounts of money involved and it will spur a big law firm to back a
no-win-no-fee action against the tobacco firms in the UK, I have no doubt
about that.'

Lawyers for the tobacco companies involved in the American action warned
that the size of the damages would bankrupt them and break the industry.
They said that the five companies involved in the lawsuit could only
afford to pay between =A3100 million to =A3250 million. They planned to
appeal, a process which could take years and offset any impact on the
industry.

Bates insisted: 'They can raise that amount of money very easily by
raising the price of cigarettes, because the defendant companies in this
action cover almost all the American market.'

The failed British court action was based on the argument that the
companies knew, or ought to have known, that cigarettes they sold to the
claimants between the 1950s and 1970s contained far more tar than was
reasonably safe and that they should have taken action.