Jump to full article: Sydney Morning Herald (au), 2009-11-26
Author: ELISABETH SEXTON
Intro: THE NSW Court of Appeal has been asked by British American Tobacco to remove a Dust Diseases Tribunal judge from hearing a landmark claim that smoking and asbestos jointly caused lung cancer.
The company argued yesterday that Judge Jim Curtis should be disqualified because of a pre-trial ruling he made in a similar case in 2006 about its destruction of documents.
The ruling was in an asbestos-tobacco compensation claim brought by a Wollongong motor mechanic, Allan Mowbray, which settled before trial.
It related to British American Tobacco's so-called ''document retention policy'' first raised in a tobacco compensation case brought by a Melbourne smoker, Rolah McCabe.
Judge Curtis denied British American Tobacco the benefits of legal professional privilege in the Mowbray case, saying the company had destroyed prejudicial documents for the purpose of suppressing evidence in anticipated litigation and that it ''dishonestly concealed this purpose by pretence of a rational non-selective housekeeping policy''.
John Sackar, QC, for British American Tobacco, said yesterday that Judge Curtis would have to ''hear the matter all over again'' in a case he began hearing in March 2006.
The plaintiff, Donald Laurie, died at the age of 68 in May 2006 and his widow, Claudia Jean Laurie, has continued the case on behalf of her husband's estate.
Ms Laurie has foreshadowed calling as a witness Fred Gulson, the former in-house lawyer for British American Tobacco Australia Services.
Jump to full article » |