Big Tobacco heading to Supreme Court after appeal upholds $15B in damages

In what is being described as a major defeat for the tobacco industry, the Quebec Court of Appeal on Friday upheld a landmark judgment ordering three companies to pay billions of dollars in damages to Quebec smokers. Imperial Tobacco, JTI-Macdonald and Rothmans-Benson & Hedges had appealed a ruling that found the companies chose profits over the health of their customers. In 2015, Quebec Superior Court Justice Brian Riordan ordered the companies to make payments of more than $15-billion to smokers who either fell ill or were addicted. At the time, the ruling was believed to be the biggest class action award in Canadian history. Lise Blais, the widow of a man who died from smoking-related illness, said Friday she was sorry her husband couldn’t be there to share the moment. Jean-Yves Blais, one of the original plaintiffs, died of lung cancer in 2012 at the age of 68. “During the trial, the tobacco companies said it was the fault of the smokers, but for me it isn’t. They played hide-and-seek with smokers,” she said. She said her husband began smoking in the 1950s and was unable to quit. She described Friday’s decision as a victory, but noted it is unlikely to be the end of the road, given the likelihood that the matter will end up before the Supreme Court of Canada. Philippe Trudel, a lawyer for smokers who brought the class action, called Friday’s decision a complete victory. Trudel estimated that after the appeal ruling, the total damages owed by the companies would be more than $17 billion. “It is excellent news for victims who have been waiting for this day for a long time,” he said. Quebec’s highest court, which began hearing the appeal in 2016, struck down almost all of the tobacco companies’ grounds for appeal. The five-judge panel confirmed that the companies failed in their duty to inform their customers of the risks of smoking and failed to demonstrate that consumers were aware of the risk. The judges concluded that the companies understood that their marketing strategies would expose consumers to the risk of addiction or fatal disease. “In so doing, they certainly infringed in an illicit and intentional fashion the rights to life, to personal security and to inviolability” of the plaintiffs, the court ruled. The 422-page decision concluded that the tobacco companies failed to demonstrate errors of law in the lower court ruling, “except on certain minor points.” Rothmans-Benson & Hedges denounced the judgment and said it would seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, echoed by JTI-Macdonald Corp. and Imperial.