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Jump to full article: Tobacco Control Resource Center/Tobacco Products Liability Project, 2002-06-21
Intro: Among Judge Lungstrum's findings were the following:
"[I]t is not for making a dangerous product that defendant [RJR] should be punished. It is for concealing how dangerous the product is that R.J. Reynolds merits punishment."
"Here, the insidious nature of Reynolds' fraudulent concealment lies not only in the evidence of its bare failure to disclose vital information but also in the evidence of its campaign to obscure the public's ability to appreciate the risks of smoking by attacking the credibility of the public health community's concerns while at the same time withholding and ignoring evidence which was within its control that would have made the truth available to consumers." . .
"Judge Lungstrum saw through Reynolds' smokescreen and recognized its behavior for what it is: egregious and outrageous wrongdoing that had a devastating impact on David Burton, as well as other residents of Kansas," said Edward L. Sweda, Jr., Senior Attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project, which is based at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. Mr. Sweda, who attended the punitive damage hearing in Kansas City last month, noted that Judge Lungstrum specifically stated that his ruling was limited to Reynolds' conduct within the State of Kansas and that, according to the opinion, the court "did not consider the interests of other states in punishing and deterring such conduct. Had the court done so, it would have had a compelling basis to award punitive damages far in excess of $15 million."
"Today's historic ruling underscores the reality that, regarding tobacco litigation, the major tobacco companies are not facing a 'West Coast' problem; they face a reprehensibility problem.
Rather than being a matter of geography, the tobacco companies' litigation problems derive from their own sordid history of corporate wrongdoing, a history accurately and powerfully described by Judge Lungstrum in today's ruling," Sweda said.
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