Jump to full article: Law Gazette, 2005-06-23
Author: Jon Robins
Intro: The case of a 60-a-day smoker that was stubbed out in court highlights the mammoth task facing claimant lawyers when they take on the giants of the tobacco industry . . .
Martyn Day, senior partner at London firm Leigh Day & Co and chairman of Greenpeace, offers the following anecdote to neatly sum up the difference between tobacco litigation on the two sides of the Atlantic.
When the claimant lawyer was preparing for his own ill-fated action on behalf of 50 smokers in the mid-1990s, he flew to Boston for a meeting with his US peers. As he disembarked from his plane - Virgin economy class - he saw a row of private jets lined up by the terminal building. 'It was when I got to the meeting that I realised they belonged to my brethren trial lawyers who have made an absolute mint from these cases,' recalls Mr Day. He was their 'poor country cousin', he adds.
While litigation on behalf of ailing smokers has made a generation of 'Lear-jet lawyers' in the US, it is not making anyone rich in the UK and such claims have yet to get off the ground in the UK. . . .
It took the judge 15 months to write a judgment weighing in at 1,121 pages and 350,000 words, after a 42-day trial. . . .
In the Leigh Day/Irwin Mitchell action, Mr Day once jokingly called their method of funding as 'no win, no fee and possible bankruptcy'. Mr Fyfe is putting a brave face on where the epic action leaves his firm. 'It didn't cost us much in terms of money but 13 years is a long time . . .
The claimant lawyers were clearly frustrated by their lack of resources. Mr Fyfe says they were forced to ask 'umpteen experts' to give evidence 'out of the goodness of their hearts' - but none came forward. They did have one former consultant in thoracic medicine, but his association with the anti-smoking group Ash meant the court did not consider him an independent expert.
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