Tobacco.org

• Suit against tobacco firm is filed in Circuit Court 

Bobbie Imogene Sharp was 62 when she died of lung cancer on Nov. 11, 1998, and she had smoked cigarettes - Salem 100s - for 30 years, according to a lawsuit filed this week in Madison County Circuit Court.

Now her daughter, Donna Clifford of Madison, is suing the maker of those cigarettes, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., for unspecified monetary damages on a claim of wrongful death.

Cigarette makers have fought many battles in the nation's courts over the years and won numerous victories by blaming the victims.

But Birmingham attorney William W. Smith, representing Clifford, says he has a way around the arguments of Big Tobacco by focusing on recently available information: That tobacco companies knew their products were potential killers, manipulated the addictive compounds in them and concealed their knowlege and actions from the public. . .

Smith argues in the lawsuit that the tobacco company was guilty of wanton, willful and/or intentional misconduct in Sharp's death.

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