McTear v Imperial Tobacco Ltd

The judgment in the case of McTear v Imperial Tobacco Ltd is a Scottish decision of the widest interest to legal and medical practitioners all over the world. The case was brought by the widow of a lifelong cigarette smoker against a tobacco company, the manufacturer of one of the brands he had smoked. In delivering his opinion Lord Nimmo Smith has conducted an exhaustive and wide-ranging review of the relevant legal principles together with medical evidence and research. The judge also considered public discussion of the risks of tobacco smoking in the British media and Parliament since the 1950’s.

The judge held that in order to succeed in her case, the widow required to prove:

• that cigarette smoking could cause lung cancer;
  
  
• that her late husband’s lung cancer was caused by smoking;
  
  
• that his cancer was caused by smoking the defender’s products;
  
  
• that he smoked the defender’s cigarettes because the defenders were in breach of a duty of care owed by them to him; and
  
  
• that such breach of duty caused or materially contributed to his lung cancer.

The judge decided that none of these points had been proved.

Such is the significance of the judgment, which runs to 350,000 words, that the Scottish Council of Law Reporting decided to publish a full report as an additional volume in its 2005 coverage of Scottish superior court decisions. This volume, Session Cases 2005[2], was issued to all subscribers to Session Cases as part of their 2005 subscription. It is also available for purchase by non-subscribers as a volume in its own right. Unusually for a law report the volume has a list of Contents and has been fully indexed.

The width and coverage of the judgment ensures that the case should find a place in all law and medico-legal libraries. The judge’s clear analysis of the law and medical research will repay close attention.

To obtain a copy of this important judgment please order the volume from:

Marston Book Services, PO Box 269, Abingdon, Oxon. OX14 4YN, UK

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