Smokers asking courts to force Big Tobacco to set aside billions

As the next phase of the lengthy court battle against large tobacco companies, lawyers are once again asking Quebec's courts to order the companies to set aside a substantial cash reserve immediately.

Rob Cunningham, a lawyer for the Canadian Cancer Society, is now in court arguing the tobacco companies should immediately set aside $4.3 billion to compensate smokers who have fallen ill or died because of using tobacco.

"The tobacco companies have an incredible determination to never pay any money in this case," said Cunningham.

After a three year court case that ended in June a Quebec Superior Court judge ruled in favour of the plaintiffs in a class action suit against Imperial Tobacco and other companies, granting smokers $15 billion in damages.

However, in an unusual step, the lower court judge ordered the companies to pay $1 billion to the plaintiffs immediately, even though Imperial Tobacco, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges and JTI McDonald are appealing the decision against them.

The judge said that given the poor health of many of the plaintiffs, the money should be handed over now, and not delayed no matter what happens with the appeal.

He said that if the tobacco companies win on appeal, the plaintiffs could always repay the tobacco companies.

In July Quebec's Court of Appeal overturned the early payment aspect of the decision, ruling there was a good chance the tobacco companies would not be reimbursed for an early payment should they win on appeal

Now the anti-tobacco groups fighting the case in court are trying once again to get the tobacco companies to pay out an interim payment, because they are convinced they will win their case in a higher court.

Cunningham says the argument that companies would go bankrupt if they put aside cash is bogus.

"They want to pay all their money out of the country to their parent companies. That's wrong," said Cunningham.

To date 25,000 of the roughly 100,000 people eligible for the class action lawsuit have registered.

The case hinges on the misleading advertising and denouncements of scientific studies that tobacco companies used from the 1950s to 1980s to pretend smoking was not a danger to health.