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Hundreds of thousands up in smoke

Well heaven be praised! At last we see a bit of justice as a tobacco company gets clobbered locally for not only selling dangerous goods, but also for destroying evidence in a bid to protect itself.

The penalty for British American Tobacco Australia Services was a cool $700,000 in damages and they had to pay that to a terminally ill woman, Rolah McCabe, who sued them for her lung cancer.

It is a first in Australia and Mrs McCabe deserves all our congratulations for having the courage to take on such a big company in a David versus Goliath battle.

However, some thanks must go to the company itself for showing just how utterly morally corrupt it is by destroying some 30,000 documents in a bid, a court heard, to keep them out of public view during such cases.

And hasn't it just opened the way up for hundreds of thousands of people in Australia to get stuck right into these scumbags and have them forking out big settlements right left and centre.

So, if you've got a condition caused by smoking, pick up the phone and give a lawyer a bell.

If there is something that has really got up your nose, let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com