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ENGLE v. RJR, et. al. (PDF) 

COUNT I STRICT LIABILITY

107. The Plaintiff adopts, realleges and incorporates by reference all of the preliminary allegations in Paragraphs 1 through 106 of this complaint

108. The jury, in its response to Question 3 of the Engle Phase I verdict, found that the Defendants and each of them had “place[d] cigarettes on the market that were defective and unreasonably dangerous.” This finding is binding in this action as res judicata pursuant to the Engle opinion. 109. As a direct and proximate result of the conduct of the Defendants as described in the preceding paragraphs, Plaintiff’s decedents, Dorothy Oliver and Annie Mae Swain, died. . . .

COUNT II NEGLIGENT DESIGN

112. The plaintiff adopts, realleges and incorporates by reference all of the preliminary allegations in Paragraphs 1 through 106 of this complaint including the ad damnum clause set forth above. . . .

COUNT III FRAUD BY CONCEALMENT

116. The plaintiff adopts, realleges and incorporates by reference all of the preliminary allegations in Paragraphs 1 through 106 of this complaint including the ad damnum clauses set forth above. . . . .

COUNT IV CIVIL CONSPIRACY – FRAUD BY CONCEALMENT

122. The plaintiff adopts, realleges and incorporates by reference all of the preliminary allegations in Paragraphs 1 through 106 of this complaint including the ad damnum clauses set forth above. . . .

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• Philip Morris USA discusses target marketing 

Members of media affairs and corporate communications at Philip Morris USA, the U.S. cigarette industry’s highest revenue, income, volume and market share generator, hosted a Nov. 15 luncheon at Emeril’s restaurant.

The purpose of the luncheon was to discuss the company’s marketing efforts, smoking cessation programs, new research and products. The company also introduced the executives who are responsible for responding to media inquiries and who direct the ethnic media outreach for the company.

Four publications, including the Broward Times, and members of a local communications company, attended the event.

The company has no current or future plans to market its products – which cause lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases – to ethnic markets, the executives said.

“Promotions are national,” said Bill Phelps, manager of media affairs for Philip Morris USA. “Marketing is broad based. We do not target ethnicities.”

The company’s Virginia Slims cigarettes are an example of target marketing, said Phelps. But, he said, they are targeted to women over the age of 21, not to an ethnicity.

Although Phelps stated that the company’s marketing is broad-based, the Philip Morris news release specifically inviting the ethnic media to the luncheon stated that it would be “a Miami Market lunchtime discussion about PM USA’s marketing efforts, its relationship with ethnic media, current tobacco legislation and how it relates to African Americans and Hispanics.’’

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Big Tobacco Suffers Major Setbacks in Florida Litigation 

Big Tobacco has suffered two major losses in its ongoing defense of hundreds of individual smokers' claims filed against it in the state of Florida.

First, in the $1 billion law suit filed by J.B. Harris on behalf of Gloria Tucker against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and others, the tobacco companies conceded that in cases where cigarette makers, Liggett Group, LLC and Vector Group, Ltd., are also named as defendants, these cases must be brought in Florida state court, rather than in federal court, since the federal courts have no jurisdiction over these companies. Earlier the tobacco giants had tried to remove Tucker's case to the United States District Court in Miami (07-21740-Civ-Gold).

Second, the United States Supreme Court has rejected its petition for relief from the Florida Supreme Court's landmark ruling in the case of Engle v. Liggett . . .

For more information contact J.B. Harris, P.A. at www.suebigtobacco.net

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Suit claims tobacco companies targeted black smokers 

A Coral Gables attorney on Wednesday filed suit against several tobacco companies, accusing them of targeting black consumers.

Attorney J.B. Harris is seeking more than $1 billion in damages on behalf of Gloria Tucker of Coral Springs, a black woman whose mother and grandmother died of health problems related to smoking. Tucker's mother, Dorothy Oliver, died on Nov. 29, 2000. Her grandmother, Annie Mae Swain, died on July 5, 1994.

Citing marketing documents from the tobacco companies, the suit claims they used unflattering generalizations about African-Americans and suggested recruiting black smokers through - among other venues - black churches, night- clubs, and traffic court, where they said 75 percent of the pedestrian traffic on weekdays is black.

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Big Tobacco's Racial Profiling Challenged in Court  

On June 7, Miami attorney J.B. Harris filed a lawsuit on Tucker's behalf. The suit seeks $1 billion in punitive damages collectively from Philip Morris USA, Lorillard Tobacco, R.J. Reynolds, and Liggett Group. It accuses the companies of using predatory marketing techniques to target African Americans. Central to the case are hundreds of tobacco industry documents that detail how companies designed cigarettes especially for African Americans; tailored marketing campaigns to lower-income, less-educated African Americans; and continued to do so long after the U.S. Surgeon General's 1964 declaration that cigarettes are hazardous to health.

"Superstitious, Unplanned, Impulsive"

Many formerly secret tobacco industry documents are filled with racist assertions. An R.J. Reynolds (RJR) market research report from 1982 discusses how the company could sell more cigarettes to African Americans. The author, Joaquin Pericas of RJR's Marketing Development Department, refers to African Americans as "an increasingly important opportunity segment" who, he claims, have "superstitious, unplanned, impulsive life styles."

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Tobacco marketed to blacks 

Tobacco companies targeted African-Americans with sophisticated marketing aimed at getting them hooked on cigarettes and eventually killing them, says a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.

The marketing was "meticulously planned and executed with clear racist intent," says the suit filed by Miami lawyer J.B. Harris on behalf of African-American Gloria Tucker, of Coral Springs, representing the estates of her grandmother and mother.

Annie Mae Swain, 80, died in 1994, and Dorothy Oliver, 72, died in 2000 of acute cardiopulmonary failure and other cardiovascular problems. Both lived in Broward County.

The suit asks for more than $1-billion in damages from tobacco companies Philip Morris USA, Lorillard Tobacco, R.J. Reynolds and Liggett Group.

The suit says the companies' targeted marketing included billboards in African-American neighborhoods, sponsorships of sporting events, endorsement deals with African-American celebrities and saturation ad campaigns in publications such as Ebony, Jet and Essence.

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Suit claims tobacco companies targeted black smokers 

A Coral Gables attorney on Wednesday filed suit against several tobacco companies, accusing them of targeting black consumers.

Attorney J.B. Harris is seeking more than $1 billion in damages on behalf of Gloria Tucker of Coral Springs, a black woman whose mother and grandmother died of health problems related to smoking. Tucker's mother, Dorothy Oliver, died on Nov. 29, 2000. Her grandmother, Annie Mae Swain, died on July 5, 1994.

Citing marketing documents from the tobacco companies, the suit claims they used unflattering generalizations about African-Americans and suggested recruiting black smokers through - among other venues - black churches, night- clubs, and traffic court, where they said 75 percent of the pedestrian traffic on weekdays is black. "In addition to placing into the stream of commerce products that defendants knew or should have known were dangerous and defective, they did so with complete and utter disregard for health and human safety, and in a systematic and deliberate manner meant to addict and ultimately kill as many smokers as possible, especially African-Americans, whose lives were cut short by defendants' reckless and outrageous conduct, including without limitation, the lives of Dorothy Oliver and Annie Mae Swain,'' the lawsuit states.

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• New suit filed against tobacco firms  

A Miami lawyer leveled a billion-dollar lawsuit against U.S. tobacco giants Thursday, alleging that their targeting of black smokers led to the death of his client's mother and grandmother.

J.B. Harris filed the suit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on behalf of Gloria Tucker, who represents the estates of her mother, Dorothy Oliver, and grandmother, Annie Mae Swain.

Both were residents of Broward County when they died in 2000 and 1994, respectively, of smoking-related health problems.

The suit alleges R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson and other cigarette makers specifically targeted black smokers through aggressive ad campaigns and specially formulated cigarettes -- efforts that amounted to racial profiling.

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• Suit Accuses Tobacco Firms of Targeting Black Consumers, Seeks $1 Billion in Damages 

Accusing tobacco companies of preying on black people, a Miami attorney is seeking $1 billion in damages on behalf of a Coral Springs, Fla., woman whose mother and grandmother both died of smoking-related health problems.

The Miami-Dade Circuit Court suit, which flows out of the massive Engle class action litigation filed in the 1990s, alleges that cigarette makers engaged in cynical and exploitative marketing targeting black communities.

The suit cites marketing documents from the tobacco companies from the 1950s through the 1990s that made disparaging generalizations about African-Americans and suggested working through black churches and youth events to recruit smokers.

"If I could, I'd try to have them charged with genocide," said solo practitioner J.B. Harris, who filed the suit. "There clearly was a racist bent in the tobacco companies' marketing. It was scientific, methodical and deliberate, and it was worse for African-Americans than for any other group."

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If I could, I'd try to have them charged with genocide. There clearly was a racist bent in the tobacco companies' marketing. It was scientific, methodical and deliberate, and it was worse for African-Americans than for any other group.
Florida attorney J.B. Harris, who has filed an Engle-derived suit.