"Nevertheless Mr Clemens submitted that when he commenced to smoke Marlboro cigarettes – in late 1971 or early 1972 – he may have been smoking cigarettes manufactured by PMAL. This submission amounted to an unsubstantiated assertion that when PMAL finished manufacturing, importing or distributing Marlboro cigarettes there was a stockpile remaining of such proportion that they were still being sold to consumers in late 1971 or early 1972. But the submission went further than this, as it had to. It was to be inferred that the Marlboro cigarettes consumed by Mr Clemens included cigarettes manufactured by PMAL. The difficulty with the submission was that it lacked evidentiary support. There was no evidence as to the quantity of Marlboro cigarettes manufactured or imported by PMAL and on hand at the end of 30 June 1967 and acquired by PML pursuant to the sale agreement. Nor was there any evidence as to what happened with any such stock, in particular as to whether it was sold in Victoria or elsewhere and, if in Victoria, where and for how long. It might be surmised that in the way of things, any such stock would not still have been on retail shelves in late 1971 or early 1972 but I do not know and cannot speculate one way or the other. Even if it be assumed that some quantity of such stock might have been on retail shelves in a business in Melbourne from which Mr Clemens purchased Marlboro cigarettes there is no evidence that he purchased an item of such stock or from which it might be inferred that he purchased such stock. Then again there is the further issue as to the likely quantity of such stock that he might have purchased, which is important for it is related to the causal question whether the smoking of that quantity of Marlboro manufactured or imported by PMAL was a cause of the damage or injury claimed in the proceeding."