Guilty of not having given enough information about the dangers of tobacco. It is for this reason that the cigarette manufacturer RJ Reynolds was sentenced to a historic fine in the United States.
It is an unprecedented verdict in the United States. Cigarette maker RJ Reynolds Tabacco Company was ordered to pay 23.6 billion dollars (17.4 million euros) to the widow of a smoker who died of lung cancer in 1996.
Up to 3 packs per day
The complainant’s husband, Michael Johnson, had smoked since he was 20, and could go up to three packs a day. He eventually died of lung cancer. In the United States, 18% of the population smokes and up to 500,000 people die each year from a disease in which tobacco is involved. Lung cancer is the leading cause, followed by other types of cancer, but cigarettes are also involved in 24% of deaths from cardiovascular disease.
According to lawyers for Mr. Johnson’s widow, the manufacturer, RJ Reynolds, has not properly informed his customers of the dangers of tobacco. The legal remedies had lasted for several years. In 2000, a court awarded $ 145 billion to a group of plaintiffs including the widow, but the judgment was overturned six years later by the Supreme Court.
“Beyond the limits of reason”
But the tobacco company intends to appeal. The amount of the fine is one of the largest in history for a judgment involving a single plaintiff. The defense therefore believes that the verdict “goes well beyond the limits of reasonableness and fairness”.
And his appeal is likely to succeed if we rely on case law. Indeed, the other cigarette maker Philip Morris had in the past been ordered to pay $ 28 billion to a plaintiff, a fine which had been reduced to $ 28 million by the Court of Appeal.
Beyond all these legal twists and turns, this case shows above all that raising awareness of the dangers of tobacco remains a public health priority.
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