Tobacco firm resists claim for damages

A woman who claims she contracted emphysema as a result of smoking over some 50 years is resisting High Court proceedings by a tobacco company to dismiss her action against it for damages, including aggravated damages.

In proceedings against Benson and Hedges Ltd, Ms Mary Manning is suing for damages for alleged assault and battery and fraud and conspiracy, claiming she was induced to continue smoking over some five decades when the defendant knew or ought to have known that cigarettes were damaging her health.

Benson and Hedges Ltd is among several tobacco companies which have brought motions aimed at dismissing proceedings for damages by 16 smokers.

The 16 smokers have also brought motions against the companies seeking judgment in default of the companies' failure to date to file defences to the smokers' damages proceedings. The companies say the delay in filing a defence is due to the plaintiffs' failure to particularise properly their claims for damages.

The hearing of the motions began yesterday before Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan and is expected to last six days.

In her statement of claim, Ms Manning claims she began smoking in 1948 at 16, became addicted that year and continued smoking for 50 years until she was diagnosed with emphysema. She pleads she was induced to continue smoking for commercial gain when the defendant ought to have known, prior to 1948 and afterwards, that cigarettes were damaging her health.

Benson and Hedges Ltd is disputing whether Ms Manning is suing the correct defendant given what the company describes as its very limited role in Ireland during the years over which the claim extended.

However, for the purpose of the motion to dismiss only, the company has agreed to proceed as if it were the correct defendant.

Ms Manning claims that when the defendant first allegedly started manufacturing and selling tobacco products here, it was fully aware of the addictive nature of these, and had manipulated and orchestrated the tar and nicotine levels to increase and continue the addictive nature of the products for commercial gain without any or any due regard to the health, safety and welfare of herself and others. She claims the defendant should have ceased selling such products prior to 1948.

Benson and Hedges Ltd claims there has been such inordinate and excessive delay in bringing and processing the action that its right to a fair trial has been gravely prejudiced and the balance of justice requires the action to be struck out.

Mr Dermot Gleeson SC, for Benson and Hedges Ltd, read an affidavit from Ms Isabel Foley, a partner in Arthur Cox, solicitors for the defendant, who said health warnings were first placed on tobacco products here from at least 1972, and that from at least 1950 the risks that smoking might cause harm to health, including potentially fatal diseases such as cancer, were "widely known".

In an affidavit opposing the motion to dismiss, Mr Hugh Ward, of Ward Fitzpatrick solicitors, for the plaintiff, said Ms Manning's case was one of 37 out of a total of 142 plaintiffs who remained from a case "streamlining" process.

Of 37 statements of claim served, the situation now was that four plaintiffs had died, one had withdrawn their claim, three had had their pleadings disputed in relation to issues of service of pleadings and 13 had been dismissed by the master of the High Court and that decision was under appeal. That left 16 before the court.

Mr Ward said it was critical for plaintiffs to see medical records before deciding whether to pursue claims. The gestation period for smoking-related illnesses was some 25 to 30 years and until a person was diagnosed with such an illness, they were unaware they had it.