Jump to full article: Sydney Morning Herald (au), 2009-12-22
Author: ELISABETH SEXTON
Intro: A NSW Court of Appeal judge has found British American Tobacco caused ''a real risk of a diminution of public confidence in the administration of justice'' by attempting to remove a judge hearing a cancer compensation case against it.
Upholding the challenge would have created a public perception that the company had ''manipulated the system in the hope of obtaining a more favourable outcome from a different judge'', said Justice John Basten. British American Tobacco wanted Judge Jim Curtis disqualified from hearing a case in the Dust Diseases Tribunal seeking compensation for lung cancer caused by both asbestos and tobacco.
The company claimed Judge Curtis could not bring ''an impartial and unprejudiced mind'' because in a different case in 2006 he made a pre-trial finding of dishonesty by British American Tobacco for concealing why it destroyed documents relating to the toxicity of its products. . . .
Similar issues about destruction of documents have been pleaded in a claim before Judge Curtis seeking compensation for the terminal illness of Donald Laurie, a boilermaker who died in 2006, aged 68. . . .
Ms Laurie has foreshadowed calling as a witness British American Tobacco Australia Services' former in-house lawyer, Fred Gulson, whose evidence was central to the 2006 ruling.
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