The Supreme Court of Canada has released its decision in R. v. Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., 2011 SCC 42, available at:

http://scc.lexum.org/en/2011/2011scc42/2011scc42.html

The case concerns the (successful) effort by the federal government to get out of complex litigation involving tobacco and health care costs.  Tobacco companies are being sued by (a) the province of British Columbia and (b) smokers (in a class action), and the defendants wanted to third party the federal government to pass along responsibility and liability.   The tobacco companies' claim against the federal government was mainly in negligent misrepresentation and failure to warn.  The SCC strikes out the third party claim, finding no reasonable cause of action against the federal government.  There is a lengthy analysis of the negligent misrepresentation claim, including lots of explicit policy analysis.  Claims for negligent design and in equity also failed.

Stephen  

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Dr. Stephen G.A. Pitel
Associate Professor 
Goodmans LLP Faculty Fellow in Legal Ethics 2011-12
Faculty of Law, The University of Western Ontario