Ah, “choice”. A frequent flyer in Big Tobacco’s PR.

The truth is: as long as nicotine is addictive, “choice” isn’t what it’s all about.

And as long as juries see that Big Tobacco secretly engineered the product for addiction, and peddled it to 12 year olds, Big Tobacco will have troubles in court.

It’s hard to explain to juries why that’s all right.

Juries who see that aren’t so eager to blame the customer.

It’s hard to sell to juries that it was the customer’s fault that Big Tobacco engineered the product as a highly optimized drug delivery device, and got millions of people addicted to it, virtually all as children.

“I didn’t know it could hurt me”

Ah, “everybody knew,” another page from Big Tobacco’s PR book. And it goes so well with “choice” too.

The truth is: for half a century Big Tobacco did its level best, through obfuscation and denial and outright lying, to “keep doubt alive”. For 50 years Big Tobacco pushed “not proven” “scientists disagree” “controversial” “merely statistical”, etc. etc. etc.

When juries see that, it gets hard to blame the customer for not being fully informed.

As Judge Munter put it, upholding the Henley verdict against Big Tobacco:

“having asserted that causation has not been established, Philip Morris cannot argue persuasively that members of the general public knew better, and by reason of their superior knowlege, are deprived of legal recourse”.

Judge Munter also found:

“It has been known by Philip Morris for decades that the overwhelming majority of adult smokers first begin to smoke while in their teenage years, and that the large majority of long-term and lifetime customers of the cigarette manufacturers are those who have become addicted to nicotine as teenagers…”

“Philip Morris has willfully and consciously marketed its cigarettes to teenagers…”

“Philip Morris has affirmatively misled the American public by advertising there was genuine and legitimate controversy in the scientific community on the subject of smoker health, when in fact there was no such controversy…”

The full opinion is at:

http://www.tobacco.neu.edu/box/BOEKENBox/Henley%20v%20PM/MunterOrderHenley.pdf

Most of the time, the old “I didn’t know it could hurt me” story is simply not credible, and that’s why over 90% of the time juries find for tobacco companies in these lawsuits.

“That makes tobacco litigation relatively easy to defend (especially when you have billions of dollars from a huge addicted captive market, allowing you to employ the ‘best’, most ruthless lawyers). All you have to do is create delay and obstruction (while professing only to be asserting your ordinary rights as a litigant) until your opponent dies…”

Playing for keeps
http://www.ntu.edu.au/faculties/lba/schools/Law/apl/blog/stories/personalinjury/158.htm