Cigarette Litigation
Cigarette Litigation
In August 1970 a leading tobacco defense attorney, David R. Hardy, wrote a confidential letter warning that indiscreet comments by industry scientists, including references to biologically active components of cigarette smoke and the search for a safer cigarette, constitute a real threat to the continued success in the defense of smoking and health litigation. The actual knowledge on the part of the defendant that smoking is generally dangerous to health, that certain ingredients are dangerous to health and should be removed, or that smoking causes a particular disease. This would not only be evidence that would substantially prove a case against the defendant company for compensatory damages, but could be considered as evidence of willfulness or recklessness sufficient to support a claim for punitive damages.
As the evidence about the health hazards of smoking accumulated, and especially after the 1964 surgeon general's report, liability protection. The cigarette companies continued to aim propaganda about the smoking and health controversy at the general public. The Cigarette Papers describes plans in 1969 for a public relations campaign intended to set aside in the minds of millions the false conviction that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and other diseases. As late as 1985, R.J. Reynolds ran misleading ads suggesting that a large epidemiological study had not found evidence of a link between smoking and heart disease.
The tobacco companies have always feared that one successful suit would lead to a flood of litigation, sweeping the industry away. Nowadays that fear seems more realistic than ever, given the hundreds of pending state lawsuits, secondhand smoke claims, class actions, and cases filed by individual smokers. The case started when two small-town Mississippi lawyers declared war on Tobacco Companies and skillfully pursued a daring new litigation strategy that ultimately brought the industry to the negotiating
In August 1970 a leading tobacco defense attorney, David R. Hardy, wrote a confidential letter warning that indiscreet comments by industry scientists, including references to biologically active components of cigarette smoke and the search for a safer cigarette, constitute a real threat to the continued success in the defense of smoking and health litigation. The actual knowledge on the part of the defendant that smoking is generally dangerous to health, that certain ingredients are dangerous to health and should be removed, or that smoking causes a particular disease. This would not only be evidence that would substantially prove a case against the defendant company for compensatory damages, but could be considered as evidence of willfulness or recklessness sufficient to support a claim for punitive damages.
As the evidence about the health hazards of smoking accumulated, and especially after the 1964 surgeon general's report, liability protection. The cigarette companies continued to aim propaganda about the smoking and health controversy at the general public. The Cigarette Papers describes plans in 1969 for a public relations campaign intended to set aside in the minds of millions the false conviction that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and other diseases. As late as 1985, R.J. Reynolds ran misleading ads suggesting that a large epidemiological study had not found evidence of a link between smoking and heart disease.
The tobacco companies have always feared that one successful suit would lead to a flood of litigation, sweeping the industry away. Nowadays that fear seems more realistic than ever, given the hundreds of pending state lawsuits, secondhand smoke claims, class actions, and cases filed by individual smokers. The case started when two small-town Mississippi lawyers declared war on Tobacco Companies and skillfully pursued a daring new litigation strategy that ultimately brought the industry to the negotiating