Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc.
| Decision Date | 21 April 1988 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 83-2864. |
| Citation | 683 F. Supp. 1487 |
| Parties | Antonio CIPOLLONE, individually and as executor of the estate of Rose D. Cipollone, Plaintiff, v. LIGGETT GROUP, INC., Philip Morris Incorporated, and Lorillard, Inc., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Budd Larner Gross Picillo Rosenbaum Greenberg & Sade, Marc Z. Edell, Short Hills, N.J., Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer, Alan M. Darnell, Woodbridge, N.J., for plaintiff.
Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith, Ravin, Davis & Bergstein, Alan S. Naar, Woodbridge, N.J., for defendant Liggett Group, Inc.
Brown & Connery, Raymond F. Drozdowski, Westmont, N.J., for defendant Philip Morris Inc.
Stryker, Tams & Dill, William S. Tucker, Newark, N.J., for defendant Lorillard, Inc.
The court will make no attempt to outline all of the evidence which has been submitted in this case, but concludes for the purposes of the pending motions that the jury could reasonably infer and find as follows:
Rose DeFrancesco Cipollone was born in 1925 and began to smoke at age 16, in the year 1942, while she was still in high school. She testified that she began to smoke because she saw people smoking in the movies, in advertisements, and looked upon it as something "cool, glamorous and grown-up" to do. She began smoking Chesterfields (manufactured by defendant Liggett Group, Inc.) primarily because of advertisements of "pretty girls and movie stars", and because Chesterfields were described in the advertisements as "mild". By the end of 1943 she was smoking a pack a day of Chesterfields. She met her husband, plaintiff Antonio Cipollone in 1946. In February 1947, Rose and Antonio Cipollone were married.
Mrs. Cipollone attempted to quit smoking while pregnant with her first child in 1947, but even then she would sneak cigarettes. While she was in labor she smoked an entire pack of cigarettes, provided to her at her request by her doctor, and after the birth of her first child she resumed smoking. She smoked a minimum of a pack a day and as much as two packs a day.
In 1955, she switched from Chesterfields to L & M cigarettes (also manufactured by Liggett) because L & M cigarettes were filtered, and she believed that the filter would trap whatever was "bad" for her in cigarette smoking. She relied upon advertisements which supported that contention. She continued to smoke approximately a pack and one-half a day until 1968, when she switched to Virginia Slims (manufactured). by defendant Philip Morris Incorporated). In this instance, she changed because the cigarettes were glamorous and long, and were associated with beautiful women — and the liberated woman. In this period she smoked again between one and two packs a day.
Because she developed a smoker's cough and heard reports that smoking caused cancer, she tried to cut down on her smoking. These attempts were unsuccessful. Throughout this period her husband opposed her smoking and frequently brought to her attention articles that stated that smoking was harmful.
She testified that she believed that the "tobacco companies wouldn't do anything that was really going to kill you", and she read and relied upon statements from the industry in the media that indicated that there was no specific proof that cigarette smoking caused cancer.
Mrs. Cipollone switched to lower tar and nicotine cigarettes based upon advertising from which she concluded that those cigarettes were safe or safer. In the 1970's she switched to Parliaments (manufactured by Philip Morris) because the filter was "recessed". The ads professed, and she concluded, that the fact that the filter was recessed made smoking safer. In 1974, she changed from Parliaments to True cigarettes (manufactured by Lorillard, Inc.) based upon the recommendation of her family physician who indicated that if she had to smoke she should smoke True. Again, she saw and relied upon the True ads that indicated that they were low in tar and nicotine, and that reinforced her view that they were safe or safer. In 1981 her cancer was diagnosed, and even though her doctors advised her to stop, she was unable to do so. She even told her doctors and her husband that she had quit when she had not, and she continued to smoke until June of 1982 when her lung was removed. Even thereafter she smoked occasionally — in hiding. She stopped smoking in 1983 when her cancer had metastasized and she was diagnosed as fatally ill. Mrs. Cipollone eventually died on October 21, 1984.
There has been overwhelming evidence presented to the jury from which they could conclude that smoking causes lung cancer, that smoking caused lung cancer in Mrs. Cipollone, and that lung cancer was the cause of her eventual death.
The conduct of Mrs. Cipollone must be viewed in light of the activities of the defendants during this same time period. In respect to the conduct of the defendants, the jury could reasonably infer and find as follows:
There was a time period in which the defendants might reasonably contend that the risks of cigarette smoking were not clearly known and defined. Gradually, however, the scientific and medical evidence began to mount beginning in the 1950's, and eventually the accepted view in the medical and scientific community was and is that smoking causes lung cancer and other diseases. For a considerable period of time in Mrs. Cipollone's early smoking career, defendants and others in the tobacco industry not only failed to warn of the risks of smoking but to the contrary suggested that cigarette smoking was safe and harmless and, indeed, that this contention even had the support of medical doctors.
Early TV ads showed machines akin to the Wizard of Oz, including "the Acuray", a brain machine which assured a safe cigarette, and the "Quality Detective". Ads referred to existing cigarette "research laboratories" and contained phrases such as "best for you", "better quality" "chemical analysis", "mild", etc. One print ad suggested that smoking a particular cigarette was "Just What The Doctor Ordered".
Evidence presented by the plaintiff, particularly that contained in documents of the defendants themselves, indicates the development of a public relations strategy aimed at combating the mounting adverse scientific reports regarding the dangers of smoking. The evidence indicates further that the industry of which these defendants were and are a part entered into a sophisticated conspiracy. The conspiracy was organized to refute, undermine, and neutralize information coming from the scientific and medical community and, at the same time, to confuse and mislead the consuming public in an effort to encourage existing smokers to continue and new persons to commence smoking.
In this regard plaintiff has presented evidence, again, mainly from the files of the defendants themselves, which demonstrates a deliberate intent and purpose to challenge all adverse medical and scientific evidence regarding smoking, irrespective of its truth or validity. Indeed, the strategy to meet the claims of the scientific community was formulated before the contents of the scientific evidence were known. Defendants determined that if a report was publicized which demonstrated the dangers of cigarette smoking, attempts would be made to offset it, and even attack the qualifications of the researcher, if necessary.
Defendants made no attempt to conduct any research before the 1950's despite growing scientific evidence of risks.2 Plaintiff offered evidence demonstrating that adverse results generated by research eventually conducted by the cigarette companies themselves were suppressed and concealed. At least one scientist testified as to threats made to him if he published his findings, and there was other evidence of attempts to suppress or coerce others.
The most subtle evidence of misrepresentation comes from the creation of the Tobacco Institute Research Committee (Council for Tobacco Research). The foregoing was created and highly publicized as the industry's good faith effort to search for the truth, learn the risks of cigarette smoking, and then supposedly report those findings to the general public. Plaintiff has presented evidence from which the jury could reasonably conclude that the creation of this entity and the work performed was nothing but a hoax created for public relations purposes with no intention of seeking the truth or publishing it. Evidence has been presented that the research actually conducted was unrelated or not pertinent to the real health issues. Furthermore, a minimal amount was invested when compared to sales, profits and amounts expended for advertising.
Defendants were well aware of the extreme difficulty smokers had and have in quitting smoking. They knew based upon sophisticated research that a smoker who found it difficult to quit, particularly faced with claims of hazards or risks, would focus on any rationalization to justify his or her continued smoking. Plaintiff presented expert testimony that Mrs. Cipollone was heavily dependent on tobacco and would grasp at any rationalization to continue, and that the cigarette companies provided that rationalization on a steady basis. The defendants and others in the industry repeatedly and publicly questioned the scientific and medical literature which linked smoking with cancer and other diseases. Furthermore, plaintiff offered expert testimony which demonstrated that even after the companies ceased making specific health claims, the vast advertising of the industry created a consistent message of purity, health, safety, reduced tars and nicotine, etc. This campaign served to create doubt in the minds of the consumer as to smoking dangers, and played on the weakness of those who were either addicted and/or dependent.
Plaintiff presented testimony that $250,000 is spent per hour 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year on cigarette advertising. Even in...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Carlisle v. Philip Morris, Inc.
...(D.N.J.1984), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1043, 107 S.Ct. 907, 93 L.Ed.2d 857 (1987), on remand, 649 F.Supp. 664 (D.N.J.1986), and 683 F.Supp. 1487 (D.N.J.1988), aff'd in part, 893 F.2d 541 (3rd Cir.1990) (Cipollone In Cipollone, the plaintiff sued under strict liability, negligence, intentional......
-
Knipe v. Smithkline Beecham, Civil Action No. 06-3024.
...indirectly to Plaintiffs were the basis of the bargain for Plaintiffs' purchase and use of Paxil. Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 683 F.Supp. 1487, 1497 (D.N.J.1988) (whether such affirmations, once made, are part of the bargain is a question of fact for the jury) (citing N.J. STAT. ANN. ......
-
Muehlbauer v. General Motors Corp.
...attempts to minimize Strzakowlski by depicting its discussion of the complaint providing notice as dicta. In Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 683 F.Supp. 1487 (D.N.J.1988), the case Strzakowlski expressly followed, the court rejected the defendant's motion to dismiss for lack of notice, on......
-
Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc.
...cigarette when it became feasible to do so in the mid-1970s was a proximate cause of Mrs. Cipollone's illness and death. See 683 F.Supp. 1487, 1493-95 (D.N.J.1988). This ruling has not been challenged on As a result of the district court's rulings, jury deliberations were limited to the fra......