Landmark victory for Australian smoker

Smoking left Mrs McCabe with advanced cancer

By Phil Mercer BBC Sydney correspondent

The international cigarette company British American Tobacco (BAT) has been found liable by a court in Australia to pay what could amount to millions of dollars to a 51-year-old grandmother who is dying from lung cancer.

Rolah Ann McCabe won a lawsuit against the multinational last week for the injuries she suffered because of her smoking.

I don't see any future for me, it's as simple as that

Rolah Ann McCabe

A jury will now decide how much she should receive for past and future medical expenses, loss of income and the pain she has endured since she was diagnosed with the disease in 1999.

Mrs McCabe is the first smoker in Australia to successfully sue a major cigarette manufacturer.

She has been told by her doctors the cancer is so far advanced she has less than a year to live.

First success

A judge at the Victorian Supreme Court in the southern city of Melbourne rejected BAT's defences to her claim for compensation without her having to prove the company's negligence.

Much of the evidence has been suppressed. The decision makes Mrs McCabe the first smoker in Australia to successfully challenge a multinational cigarette company in the courts.

It's now up to a six member jury to decide how much the manufacturer will have to pay. It could run in to several million dollars.

Mrs McCabe's lawyer told the Supreme Court she must be properly compensated for the "unremitting" physical and emotional pain she suffers as a result of her lung cancer.

Blanket

The jury heard how the tumor in her chest had spread to her stomach and that she needs a constant supply of morphine to ease the pain.

Mrs McCabe was cloaked in a blanket as she told the jury her life was effectively over.

"I don't see any future for me, it's as simple as that," she said. "I have been given a set time and that's it."

She said radical chemotherapy had made her "sicker and sicker".

She said she had previously enjoyed an active life. She was - the court was told - once capable of running more than 12 kilometres in just over an hour, but now she could not even walk around a supermarket.

She said she rarely slept, suffered nausea and vomiting and had numbness in her fingers and toes.

The hearing continues.