A class action lawsuit by buyers of light cigarettes against Imperial Tobacco Canada included the government of Canada as a third party. Imperial claimed that the Canadian government played a critical role in encouraging smokers to switch to light and mild cigarettes by developing and promoting strains of tobacco used in light and mild cigarettes and dictating the warnings printed on the cigarette packages. Imperial sought to recover from Canada reimbursement of any money that it may be found liable to pay to class members. In this decision, the court ruled that the government of Canada is immune from liability, in part because it was engaged in the making of policy through regulation of its health programs. The court found that the Crown is immune from liability to either the consumer or to Imperial Tobacco and struck the claim against it.
Knight v. Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited, 2007 BCSC 964 (2007).
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"It is important to remember in the case at bar that Canada did not create the risk to health, it merely attempted to regulate and reduce it. Once again, if it has been wrong or careless in how it has gone about it, that is for the political arena to determine. I find that Canada’s decision to promulgate standards for information and content of toxic constituents of cigarettes was a policy decision put into effect by regulation and thus removed from tort liability (Kimpton, supra). Those paragraphs of the Third Party Notice seeking contribution and indemnity for a breach of duty toward Imperial should be struck out."
Limitations regarding the use of quotes The quotes provided here reflect statements from a specific decision. Accordingly, the International Legal Consortium (ILC) cannot guarantee that an appellate court has not reversed a lower court decision which may influence the applicability or influence of a given quote. All quotes have been selected based on the subjective evaluations undertaken by the ILC meaning that quotes provided here may not accurately or comprehensively represent a given court’s opinion or conclusion, as such quotes may have originally appeared alongside other negative opinions or accompanying facts. Further, some quotes are derived from unofficial English translations, which may alter their original meaning. We emphasize the need to review the original decision and related decisions before authoritatively relying on quotes. Using quotes provided here should not be construed as legal advice and is not intended to be a substitute for legal counsel on any subject matter in any jurisdiction. Please see the full limitations at https://www.tobaccocontrollaws.org/about.
A class action lawsuit by buyers of light cigarettes against Imperial Tobacco Canada included the government of Canada as a third party. Imperial claimed that the Canadian government played a critical role in encouraging smokers to switch to light and mild cigarettes by developing and promoting strains of tobacco used in light and mild cigarettes and dictating the warnings printed on the cigarette packages. Imperial sought to recover from Canada reimbursement of any money that it may be found liable to pay to class members. In this decision, the court ruled that the government of Canada is immune from liability, in part because it was engaged in the making of policy through regulation of its health programs. The court found that the Crown is immune from liability to either the consumer or to Imperial Tobacco and struck the claim against it.