Ky. attorney's testimony wanted in tobacco case

A former attorney for the tobacco industry who testified against his employers is at the center of two Canadian lawsuits alleging that tobacco companies hid the dangers of their products.

Attorneys in Montreal want to take the testimony of David A. Schechter, a former Brown & Williamson vice president and general counsel living in Louisville. The attorneys also want testimony from attorney John Meltzer of London, England, a one-time attorney for British American Tobacco, in class-action lawsuits about how tobacco companies kept and destroyed documents. The lawsuits are set for trial in March.

Schechter will be asked about document policies at Brown & Williamson, which was based in Louisville until 2004, said Bruce Johnston, a Montreal-based attorney. Johnston is also seeking testimony about another company, Imperial Tobacco of Canada, which used a similar policy.

"The object of these policies was to destroy documents to prevent their discovery in litigation," Johnston told The Associated Press.

Johnston represents plaintiff Cecilia Letourneau in the cases against Imperial Tobacco, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges and JTI Macdonald Corp. The lawsuits are similar to cases that played out across the United States in recent decades.

The suit is one of two in Montreal against the tobacco companies brought by smokers who claim smoking-related illnesses from tobacco and that the firms conspired to stop smokers from learning about the addictive nature and dangers of tobacco products.

Schechter did not return several messages from AP. Messages left at Imperial Tobacco and Rothmans, Benson & Hedges also were not returned.

Caroline Evans, a spokeswoman for JTI Macdonald, declined to address Schechter's possible testimony.

"We are looking forward to presenting our case in court," Evans said in an email.

Canadian Judge Brian Riordan, at the behest of Johnston and other plaintiffs' attorneys, sent a request Aug. 3 to U.S. District Court in Louisville for a subpoena for Schechter's testimony. A similar request has been made of the British courts for Meltzer's testimony.

The request asks that the American court system help locate and make Schechter available for questioning, with his testimony to be recorded and admitted at trial in Canada.

Schechter surfaced in the Canadian case because he testified in 2006 that tobacco companies created document retention and destruction policies in the 1990s aimed at getting rid of anything that could be used against them in a lawsuit.

"Keeping the documents out of the hands of Canadian litigants is one possibility," Schechter testified. "... Well, the other purpose would have been to keep them out of the hands of the Canadian government, which is more likely."

Johnston said Schechter's testimony about the document destruction is a key to his case.

"That's really what we're after," Johnston said.