|
PERRON vs.
RJR MacDonald
June, 20th, 1988:
Vancouver lawyer Russell
Stanton filed a suit against RJR MacDonald Inc. on behalf of his client, Roger Perron. Roger Perron had lost both his legs through amputation as a
result of Buerger's Disease.
The claim stated that RJR-MacDonald had been negligent in
failing to carry out proper research to determine the effect of tobacco upon
smokers, failing to test and research adequately the risk of Buerger's
disease createsd by smoking, failing to inform itself of the hazards of
tobacco products, failing to warn smokers, doctors, retailers and consumers,
failing to warn those suffering from Buerger's disease. The claim also
stated that the "artful and insidious" advertising of the company's products
would have nullified any warnings using tobacco and that it failed to warn
of the "psychological dependancy."
A news conference was held to announce the
law-suit. Participating in the conference were Russell Stanton, as
well as David Stuart, president of the British Columbia Trial Lawyers
Association, David Sweanor of the Non smoker's Rights Association, and Dr.
Fred Bass.
During the press conference, it was acknowledged that this
action was "part of an international trend for the recovery of damages
arising from tobacco-related diseases" and reference was made to the
Cipollone decision in New Jersey the previous week.
June 22, 1988:
An opinion piece by U.S. Litigator John Banzhaff was printed
the following week in the Toronto Star. An appeal for funds for the lawsuit was reported in early
July.
The following judgments on the case were issued:
February 2, 1990:
The Court of Appeal for British
Columbia upheld a prior court ruling against RJR-Macdonald's request that
the action be dismissed because the limitation period was over.
March 22, 1993:
The Supreme Court of British
Columbia issued reasons for its ruling that the limitation period had
expired.
Industry documents discussing the trial include:
Media Coverage
Man who lost
legs from smoking sues tobacco firm:[FIN Edition]
CP.
Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont.: Jun 20, 1988. p. A3
VANCOUVER (CP) - A Vancouver man who says
smoking caused the loss of his legs was to file a lawsuit today
against a U.S. cigarette maker, said his lawyer.
It is the first such lawsuit in Canada
against the tobacco industry, said Russell Stanton, who represents
Roger Perron, 35, who suffers from Berger's Disease, also known as
smoker's leg, which narrows arteries, often resulting in
amputation.
"We are saying he lost his limbs because he
was not warned that smoking could result in this disease."
ProQuest document ID: 473808841
Text Word Count 85
Tobacco firm faces lawsuit from smoker who
lost his legs:[4* Edition]
The Vancouver Sun. Vancouver, B.C.:Jun 20,
1988. p. A3
A 35-year-old Vancouver man who says he
lost both legs in a rare disease caused by smoking goes to court
today to file a writ in what his lawyer believes is Canada's first
such lawsuit against the tobacco industry.
Former heavy equipment operator Roger
Perron, who claims he smoked Exports for 17 years, suffers from
Berger's Disease, also known as "smoker's leg," which narrows the
arteries in the leg, restricting circulating and often resulting
in the need for amputation, his lawyer, Russell Stanton, said.
"We are saying he lost his limbs because he
was not warned that smoking could result in this disease," Stanton
said.
Perron, the single parent of an
eight-year-old boy, is suing RJR Macdonald Inc., a subsidiary of
the U.S.-based R.J. Reynolds Industries Inc., for unspecified
damages for wage loss and injuries.
Stanton said the suit will claim that RJR
Macdonald knew of the danger of Berger's Disease associated with
smoking, but did nothing to warn smokers.
He said a written warning should have been
carried on the cigarette package.
The B.C. Supreme Court suit follows a
landmark U.S. court ruling last week that a cigarette maker had
contributed to the death of a smoker.
Stanton said Perron started smoking at the
age 13, and quit cold turkey in 1983 after the loss of his second
leg. He lost his job and now lives on a disability pension.
Stanton said if the suit is successful,
Perron is willing to set aside part of his award to be used by
other smokers for other actions against tobacco companies.
He said Berger's Disease usually strikes
men in the 20-to-40 age bracket, but research indicates that women
can also become afflicted.
In the U.S. case, a federal court jury
awarded $400,000 US in damages to the husband of a woman who died
of lung cancer at the age of 58.
It was the first case of a tobacco company
being ordered to pay money for a disease caused by cigarettes.
The jury found the woman was 80-per-cent
responsible for her death.
Stanton said he will be relying in part on
a 1986 Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that Ortho Pharmaceutical
(Canada) was negligent in the case of a woman who suffered a
stroke after taking the company's birth control pills.
The woman was awarded $837,000 damages from
the defendant after the Ontario court declared that manufacturers
of birth control pills should warn consumers of all possible side
effects in taking the drugs.
ProQuest document ID: 171601831
Ex-smoker
first Canadian to sue a tobacco firm:[FIN Edition]
Tim Harper Toronto Star. Toronto Star.
Toronto, Ont.:Jun 21, 1988. p. A23
Full
Text (388 words)
Copyright 1988 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.
VANCOUVER - A former pack-a-day smoker who
says his habit cost him his legs has become the first Canadian to
sue a tobacco manufacturer for damage from his addiction.
Roger Perron, a 35-year-old single parent
of a 7-year-old boy, yesterday filed suit in British Columbia
Supreme Court, seeking unspecified damages against the giant RJR
MacDonald Inc. cigarette manufacturer.
Perron lost both his legs to Buerger's
Disease, a rare condition that doctors say is found almost
exclusively in smokers.
Perron's addiction to cigarettes was so
severe he continued smoking even after the amputation of his left
leg in 1980, he said in the statement of claim.
It was only after the loss of his other leg
in 1983 that an acupuncturist finally stopped a habit that had
seen the former heavy equipment operator smoke 20 to 25 cigarettes
daily since age 13.
"I tried to (quit) many times. I just
couldn't stop," Perron said.
The first Canadian lawsuit came one week
after a jury in Newark, N.J., found that the cigarette
manufacturer Liggett Group Inc., was partially responsible for the
death of Rose Cipollone, who died of lung cancer. Her family was
awarded $496,000.
But the next day, a federal appeals court
in Cincinnati, Ohio, dismissed a lawsuit from a man who had lost
his left leg to pulmonary disease. The court cited a 1966 U.S.
Congress decision that compelled cigarette manufacturers to warn
customers of the dangers of smoking.
That was the fourth time a U.S. court had
cited the 1966 labelling law in tossing out a lawsuit.
Jeffrey Labow, a spokesman for RJR
MacDonald Inc., a wholly owned Canadian subsidiary of the
London-based RJR Tobacco International Inc., said the company will
defend itself "vigrously, with all he resources at our command.
"The fundamental question is, is it fair
for someone who freely chooses to smoke and then becomes ill to
try to put responsibility for his voluntary choice on to someone
else."
David Sweanor of the Toronto-based
Non-Smokers' Rights Association, said the labelling argument used
by U.S. manufacturers will have no bearing in a Canadian court.
He said the U.S. industry has argued that
the warning on cigarette packages is the one dictated by
legislation passed by Congress.
"In Canada, the warnings you see on
cigarette packages are put there voluntarily," he said.
ProQuest document ID: 473811661
Smoke lawsuit called warning:[3* Edition]
JOANNE
MacDONALD. The Vancouver Sun. Vancouver, B.C.:Jun 21, 1988. p.
A3
Roger Perron says he launched a landmark
lawsuit against tobacco giant RJR-Macdonald Inc. because he wants
to spare others the physical suffering he's endured due to the
effects of tobacco consumption.
"I feel they (the company) should warn the
public more that smoking is dangerous to anybody's health. You
don't want to get cancer (and) there are other kinds of diseases
that smoking aggravates or causes. It hurts," Perron, told
reporters Monday at a news conference in Vancouver.
The 35-year-old city man, a former heavy
equipment operator who says he smoked the Export brand for 17
years, had his legs amputated after contracting Buerger's disease.
The disease, which usually strikes males
between age 20 to 40, narrows the arteries in the leg, restricting
circulation.
Perron filed a writ Monday in B.C. Supreme
Court against RJR-Macdonald Inc. for an unspecified amount in
damages, saying the company failed to warn people of the effect of
tobacco in association with Buerger's disease and that it is
unsafe and harmful to their health. Perron is seeking compensation
for his loss of limbs, interference in his ability to make a
living and costs.
The company is a subsidiary of the
U.S.-based R.J. Reynolds Industries Inc.
The B.C. Supreme Court suit follows a
landmark U.S. federal court ruling last week that a cigarette
maker had contributed to the death of a smoker.
In that case, a jury awarded $400,000 US in
damages to the husband of a woman who died of lung cancer at the
age of 58. The jury found the woman was 80-per-cent responsible
for her death, but it was the first case in which a tobacco
company was ordered to pay money for a disease caused by
cigarettes.
He told reporters he does not want to
settle out of court because he wants "to make a point here."
The unemployed Perron, who is on a
disability pension and raising his seven-year-old son alone, said
his message to others is simple: "Don't smoke."
Jeff Labow, vice-president of corporate
affairs for RJR-Macdonald, said from Toronto the manufacturer
plans to use all of its resources in its defence.
"The decision to smoke is a matter of
individual choice and personal responsibility," Labow said. "Is it
fair for someone who chooses to smoke and becomes ill to put the
responsibility on someone else?"
Perron's statement of claim filed in court
says in 1976, at age 24, he began to suffer loss of circulation,
pain and discomfort in his lower extremities that increased so
much that in 1980, his left leg had to be amputated.
An autopsy of the leg showed he suffered
from Buerger's disease.
However, Perron said Monday that because of
his addiction, he was unable to quit smoking and the disease
progressed.
He said that in 1983, after his right leg
was amputated, he quit smoking - with the help of acupuncture -
and the disease has remained dormant.
David Sweanor, staff counsel for the
Non-Smokers Rights Association based in Toronto, told the news
conference the Perron litigation will be based on a 1986 ruling
from the Ontario Court of Appeal.
In that case, Ortho Pharmaceutical (Canada)
was found to be negligent in the case of a woman who suffered a
stroke after taking the company's birth control pills.
The woman was awarded $837,000 in damages
after the Ontario court ruled that manufacturers of birth control
pills should warn consumers of all possible side effects in taking
the drugs.
ProQuest document ID: 171601011
Smoker sues tobacco firm over
ailment:[Final Edition]
The Gazette. Montreal, Que.:Jun 21, 1988.
p. A11
VANCOUVER (CP) - A former heavy-equipment
operator, who says he lost his legs to a smoking-related disease,
filed a landmark lawsuit yesterday against a Canadian tobacco
manufacturer.
Roger Perron's lawsuit, against RJR
Macdonald Inc., marks the first time in Canada that a tobacco
company has been sued for damages relating to diseases suffered by
smokers.
A U.S. Federal Court jury in New Jersey
awarded Antonio Cipollone $400,000 in damages last week after
finding tobacco company Liggett Group Inc. partially to blame for
the death of his wife, Rose. She died in 1984 of lung cancer.
Perron, 35, of Vancouver, is a victim of
Buerger's disease, an arterial ailment - aggravated by smoking -
that cuts off the circulation to the limbs. Both his legs were
amputated below the knee.
David Sweanor, lawyer for the Non-Smokers'
Rights Association, said Perron's suit claims that warnings issued
by Canadian tobacco firms are inadequate.
RJR Macdonald official Jeff Labow said in
an interview from Toronto that "the decision to smoke is a matter
of individual choice and personal responsibility."
Perron, an unemployed single father, said
he was told to stop smoking after he lost one of his legs in 1980,
but didn't quit until after he lost his other leg in 1983, 17
years after he started smoking.
Perron's lawyer, Russell Stanton, said the
case would probably not go to trial for at least a year. He said
he had been holding back the action until the U.S. court ruling in
New Jersey had been rendered.
[Illustration]
Black & White Photo; Caption: ROGER PERRON
Launches landmark lawsuit
ISSN: 03841294
Amputee needs money to fight tobacco
firm:[3* Edition]
LISA KELLER. The Vancouver Sun.
Vancouver, B.C.:Jul 6, 1988. p. A13
Roger Perron, the Vancouver man who last
month sued tobacco company R.J.R. Macdonald Inc. after losing both
his legs to Buerger's disease, says the lawsuit may be unavoidably
delayed because he can't pay his legal bills.
"I'm starting to accumulate bills," Perron
said. "I won't let the action die, but it may take years now,
because I can only pay so much each month."
Perron said he's not eligible for legal
aid, and he has not negotiated a contingency fee deal with his
lawyer, Russell Stanton.
He is seeking compensation for loss of his
legs, interference in his ability to earn a living and costs.
Perron hopes he'll receive donations from
the public, and plans to open an account for the money, to be used
specifically for the lawsuit.
"I'm getting a lot of support from a lot of
people, but none of it financial. I'm not the only one with
Buerger's disease or cancer, and if we do set a precedent with
this case, it will help thousands of others," he said.
Perron says he had smoked Export cigarettes
for 15 years before he was struck with the disease, which narrows
leg arteries and restricts circulation.
After his left leg was amputated in 1980,
Perron continued to smoke until his right leg was amputated three
years later.
The 35-year-old single father wants to go
into elementary schools in the fall in an effort to educate
children about the dangers of smoking.
"I want to prove my point. I want to show
the kids what happened to me, so they won't start smoking."
ProQuest document ID: 171626541
Text Word Count 271
Tobacco firms have
been getting off easy But recent lawsuits will shift cost of
smoking away from taxpayers:[FIN Edition]
John F.
Banzhaf III. Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont.:Jun 22, 1988. p. A33
When the U.S. surgeon general announced
that other people's smoking causes cancer in non-smokers, the
tobacco industry proclaimed it a "victory" because he didn't also
claim that it caused non-smokers to suffer heart attacks. Now,
after frightening away attorneys for years by boasting that its
multi-million- dollar defences couldn't be breached, the industry
is again claiming victory: This month a jury found that smoking
caused Rose Cipollone's lung cancer and agonizing death, and
ordered it to pay $400,000 - more than the average wrongful death
verdict.
Myth shattered
But, in fact, the myth of tobacco industry
invulnerability was forever shattered when a young lawyer from a
small New Jersey law firm beat their $20 million defence team - a
victory all the more telling because it came in the face of
judicial rulings absolving the tobacco industry for all the
smoking Cippolone did after health warnings appeared in 1965. That
took away two of the plaintiff attorney's key arguments and
required him to show that the company bore more than 50 per cent
of the responsibility.
Recognizing that lawsuits in many other
jurisdictions will not have to face these obstacles, that the tide
of public opinion concerning smoking has changed dramatically
since most of the earlier cases were lost, and that most of the
expense of obtaining the key documents will not have to be
repeated in future suits, many experienced litigators are already
gearing up for more cases and more victories.
They don't really care on which legal
counts the case was won because they know that plaintiffs are
awarded the same amount if you win on one count or 10; that most
verdicts are compromises, with all jurors often not agreeing on
any one claim; that documents detailing a deliberate cover-up and
conspiracy inevitably affect jurors even if they don't admit it
and that verdicts in the initial breakthrough cases are often
small.
Injuries and deaths caused by consumer
products, even when the risks are plain, often involve
responsibility by both the victim and the manufacturer; the victim
assumed certain risks, but the company failed to make the product
safer or to issue more effective warnings. Thus in case after case
- of power tools, electrical appliances and even step ladders -
grieving families have long been allowed to recover a fair share
of their losses.
Without such recoveries, manufacturers
would have little incentive to reduce accidents by moderating
advertising, providing more specific and effective warnings or
making the product less dangerous.
Similarly, many of the medical and other
costs would be unfairly borne by taxpayers (through social
security, medicare and welfare payments) and other third parties
(such as health insurance companies) rather than by the company
that profits from the sale.
Indeed, cigarette companies make such
obscene profits largely because, unlike most other manufacturers,
they have not been forced to pay their fair share of the cost of
the deaths and disabilities that their products cause. These
costs, estimated to be more than $100 billion each year, are now
largely borne by non-smokers in the form of higher taxes and
higher insurance premiums.
Thus the effect of these lawsuits is to
shift some of the enormous costs of smoking from non-smokers to
the industry, which in turn will be forced to charge smokers more.
Such increased prices have been shown to
reduce smoking primarily among two groups: children, who are the
innocent victims and often find themselves hooked before they are
old enough to understand and appreciate a health warning; and
members of the lower classes, who are the most resistant to
educational campaigns and social pressures to quit smoking.
If cigarette companies are not held liable
- or, alternatively, if much higher taxes approximating the
economic costs of smoking are not imposed - all of society is
forced to bear these enormous costs. In addition, one out of every
four smokers will be killed by smoking. Their families and society
will suffer, and the tobacco companies will keep getting richer.
Smokers will pay
Requiring cigarette companies to pay their
fair share for these deaths and disabilities will force smokers to
bear the costs of their own addiction, help provide some
compensation to their families when their smoking kills them and
deter smoking among the two most vulnerable groups by using the
forces of the marketplace rather than governmental intervention.
Society will be better off, non-smokers
will save, and smokers' families will receive some compensation
when a wage earner dies. Only the cigarette companies will lose -
which is why they are spending so much to persuade you that
lawsuits against them are a bad idea and that they still haven't
lost one.
* John F. Banzhaf III, a professor of law
at George Washington University, is the executive director and
chief counsel of Action on Smoking and Health.
ProQuest document ID: 473815191
Text Word Count 807
Former smoker can't afford lawsuit:[FIN
Edition]
(CP). Toronto
Star. Toronto, Ont.:Jul 7, 1988. p. A9
VANCOUVER (CP) - Roger Perron, who is suing
a Canadian tobacco manufacturer after losing both legs as the
result of a smoking- related disease, says the suit may be delayed
because he cannot pay his legal bills.
The suit against RJR-MacDonald Inc. marks
the first time in Canada that a tobacco company has been sued for
damages related to diseases suffered by smokers, said Perron's
lawyer, Russell Stanton.
Perron said he "won't let the action die,
but it may take years now, because I can only pay so much each
month."
He added that he is not eligible for legal
aid and he has not negotiated a contingency fee deal with his
lawyer.
The suit was filed last month in British
Columbia Supreme Court.
Perron, 35, a former heavy equipment
operator, suffers from Berger's disease, also known as smoker's
leg. The ailment narrows the arteries in the leg, often resulting
in amputation.
"I'm getting a lot of support from a lot of
people, but none of it financial," Perron said.
"I'm not the only one with Berger's disease
or cancer, and if we do set a precedent with this case, it will
help thousands of others."
Perron says he smoked for 15 years before
he was struck with the disease.
After his left leg was amputated in 1980,
Perron continued to smoke until his right leg was amputated three
years later.
ProQuest document ID: 473891161
Amputee wins first
round against tobacco firm; [3* Edition]
KAYCE WHITE. The Vancouver Sun.
Vancouver, B.C.: Feb 3, 1990.
A Vancouver man who claims he lost both
legs through a vascular disease connected with cigarette smoking
will go to court next January in the first stage of an action for
damages against an international tobacco company.
B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed Friday an
appeal by the R.J.R. Macdonald Inc. that argued Roger Perron had
waited too long to start legal action in which he claims the
company had a duty to warn him about the health hazards of
cigarettes.
According to his statement of claim, Perron,
38, began smoking Export cigarettes at age 13 and at age 24 began
to suffer pain and loss of circulation in his legs.
After his left leg was amputated four years
later, an autopsy showed he suffered Buerger's Disease, known
medically as thromboangiitis obliterans (TAO), a disease linked to
young men who smoke. TAO blocks circulation to hands and legs and
amputation may be necessary if smoking is not stopped.
Although Perron's doctor advised him to
quit smoking, he claims he was addicted to Macdonald's cigarettes
and continued to smoke until his right leg was amputated in 1983.
He then stopped smoking and the disease has since remained dormant
and his health has improved.
Perron alleges Macdonald's was negligent in
failing to test and research the risk of tobacco use; failing to
warn users of the hazards of tobacco, especially in connection
with Buerger's Disease and failing to warn users that cigarette
smoking was addictive, causing physical and psychological
dependency.
Perron's action against Macdonald was
started June 20, 1988, claiming the cause of action began in 1976
when Perron began to suffer pain and loss of circulation in his
legs. Ordinarily, a two-year limitation on damage suits would have
expired in 1978.
Lawyers for Macdonald argued the two-year
limit would have expired two years before Perron began legal
action.
In dismissing the appeal, the court said
the principal question is whether Macdonald's had a duty to warn
Perron, between 1980 and 1984, of the dangers of smoking to
victims of Buerger's Disease.
A trial date has been set for Jan. 21,
1991.
Amputee waited too
long to sue, court rules: But ex-smoker vows to fight on; [1* Edition]
Lora Grindlay. The Province. Vancouver,
B.C.: Mar 25, 1993.
A legless man won't stop his fight against
the tobacco company he blames for the loss of his limbs.
A B.C. Supreme Court judgment released this
week says Roger Perron waited too long before filing a writ
against the RJRMacDonald tobacco company in 1988.
Justice Raymond Cooper ruled thatPerron,
40, should have filed his case within two years after his second
leg wasamputated in 1983.
Perron lost his legs due to Buerger's
disease, a condition that causes the narrowing of arteries in the
leg and cuts off circulation.
He smoked a pack of Export A a day for 17
years and continued to smoke after his first leg was amputated in
1980. He kicked the habit using acupuncture in late 1983.
Cooper said: "It seems unlikely that a
reasonable man, given the plaintiff's injuries and his knowledge
of their cause, would not have made legal inquiries prior to 1987
(when he first consulted a lawyer)."
But yesterday Perron said he was anything
but reasonable following the loss of his legs.
"I was a basket case," he said. "I lost my
legs and everything else on top of that."
The East Vancouver single father told his
lawyer, Russell Stanton, to appeal the decision. He wants the
company to pay for not warning him about the dangers of tobacco.
He said he continued smoking through his
disease because he was an addict and a "non-believer" about the
consequences.
"I'm not proud of it but we have to protect
our children," he said.
Stanton said Perron had no chance of
winning his case until 1988, a year after a precedent-setting case
against a tobacco company in the U.S. "It's a developing area of
the law."
ProQuest document ID: 231285581
[ Provinces could
follow Buerger's disease victim Roger... ]
Brad Evenson, Southam Newspapers. CanWest
News. Don Mills, Ont.: Jul 2, 1997.
OTTAWA - In 1979, a Yellowknife apprentice
mechanic named Roger Perron noticed his left leg had gone numb as
he installed a muffler.
He shook it, but the numbness stayed. Then
he poked it a few times. The next sensation was a thousand
stabbing needles.
The pain gripped him 24 hours a day. It was
so agonizing Perron would wake up shrieking no matter what kind of
painkillers he swallowed.
His leg began to swell until the flesh
burst apart like soft grapefruit. In October 1979, doctors
amputated the leg. An autopsy on the severed limb found Perron had
Buerger's disease, an inflammation of blood vessels most common in
men under 45 who smoke.
Perron, 28, had smoked Export A brand
cigarettes for 15 years. A pack a day.
He was so addicted he could not quit, even
after doctors were forced to cut off his gangrenous right leg in
1982.
"I lost everything," he says.
By then, he was strung out on painkillers,
uppers, downers, Smirnoff vodka. When Perron was fired, his wife
took their infant son and fled. "They were scared of me," he says
today. "I guess I was kind of insane."
When Perron got around to pulling his life
together, he visited Vancouver lawyer Russell Stanton to
straighten out a disability insurance claim. Stanton asked him how
he lost his legs.
Until then, no Canadian had ever sued a
tobacco company for damages. But Stanton had studied U.S. lawsuits
carefully and subscribed to a legal newsletter on tobacco issues;
a week before, he had read that a New Jersey court awarded a
cancer victim's family $400,000 US.
"I thought, `What the hell?' " says
Stanton, knowing Perron was so broke he'd have to cover his own
costs.
"This was my chance to be a thorn in the
tobacco industry's side."
In 1988, Roger Perron became the first
Canadian to sue a tobacco company, Export manufacturer
RJR-Macdonald, for damages. Stanton became a lone, legal thorn.
Soon, he may have plenty of company.
Proposed changes to British Columbia law,
and changes under consideration across Canada, would allow new,
statistical evidence to be admitted into court, and would supply
provincial money to fund class-action lawsuits against cigarette
makers. Although it still faces some significant hurdles in the
U.S. Congress, a $368-billion US pact reached last week between
tobacco companies, state attorneys general and lawyers for ill
smokers is bound to galvanize efforts in Canada to construct a
similar deal.
"You've got a basic shift in the public's
attitudes about the culpability of the tobacco industry," says
Eric LeGresley, legal counsel for the Non-Smokers' Rights
Association.
B.C. Premier Glen Clark was more blunt: "I
am declaring war on the tobacco companies."
Government officials in Saskatchewan,
Atlantic Canada and Ontario have expressed an interest in pursuing
legal options against Big Tobacco. And Health Canada lawyers are
looking into how the federal government could "quarterback" these
provincial attacks. "The minister (Allan Rock) is meeting with the
provinces in September, and he wants to know what the legal
options are," said a department lawyer.
The federal government has never before
joined the provinces in a class-action lawsuit, although it has
intervened on behalf of women seeking compensation for breast
implant damages from the liability fund set aside by U.S.
corporation Dow Corning Inc.
In Ontario, four smokers launched a
class-action suit in 1995 against tobacco companies on behalf of
more than 2.4 million Ontario smokers. The case is dragging slowly
toward a courtroom.
But such glacial progress adds to
significant debate over spending untold millions on taking
Canada's big three tobacco companies - Imperial Tobacco Ltd.,
Rothmans Benson & Hedges and RJR- Macdonald Inc. - to court. Is
this the best way to collect the estimated $7.2 billion in the
unrecovered health costs of smoking- related illnesses? "There is
likely to be at least 10 years of litigation before anybody sees a
penny," says LeGresley.
Perron's case is a perfect example. After
42 court applications over seven years, Stanton never got to argue
his case on its merits; the case was thrown out because Perron
waited too long after losing his legs to seek justice.
"It was ridiculous," says Stanton.
Now they are poised to return to court,
since B.C.'s proposed legal changes would dump the statute of
limitations on tobacco lawsuits. And after years of footing his
own bills, the B.C. government could even cover some of Stanton's
costs.
B.C. also wants to impose license fees on
tobacco companies, a policy favored by anti-smoking groups because
it extracts money without a lengthy court battle. LeGresley says
this isn't another tax "because the companies would pay their
assigned license fee whether the products were legally sold or
contraband, they would have no incentive, as they have had in the
past, to facilitate smuggling."
In fact, companies would pass on license
costs in their prices, so they would actually try to stamp out
tobacco smuggling.
Canada's tobacco industry says the B.C.
legislation is rooted in such U.S.-based concerns as allegations
the industry targets children in its advertising, a concern for
which there is foundation.
Secret documents released by Imperial
Tobacco Ltd. and RJR- MacDonald in 1987 during their Supreme Court
challenge of Canada's tobacco-ad ban show teens are their key
market. Only about 10 per cent of smokers switch brands every
year. An Imperial marketing document said: "If the last 10 years
have taught us anything, it is that the industry is dominated by
the companies who respond most effectively to the needs of young
smokers."
The federal government's latest tobacco ad
laws, Bill C-71, which limits tobacco sponsorship at sports and
cultural events, now may face a legal challenge from the industry.
In the meantime, a growing segment of youth is lighting up, a
painful sight to Roger Perron.
Perron quit smoking with acupuncture
treatments in 1982, and after several years, regained custody of
his only son, a teenager who recently took up smoking.
"Now he's starting to get addicted," says
Perron gloomily.
"He does it behind my back, but I know. His
girlfriend smokes. He does it to be cool.
"And that just kills me."
ProQuest document ID: 329474501
|
