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Tobacco company in bid to remove judge 

BRITISH American Tobacco has asked the NSW Court of Appeal to remove a Dust Diseases Tribunal judge from hearing a landmark claim that smoking and asbestos jointly caused lung cancer.

The tobacco 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 controversial 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.

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