(Sacramento, CA) --   A major tobacco case begins today (opening arguments Thursday, November 7, 10:00 AM) in Sacramento.   In California’s Superior Court (Dept. T, 720 9^th Street, open to the public), Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco will be in the same courtroom “despite RJR’s refusal so far to agree with Philip Morris’s recent admission that the industry knew but kept secret that smoking is addictive,” according to consumer attorneys Mary Alexander of San Francisco and Gary Paul of Santa Monica.

    Both Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds will be challenged for 52-year-old Larry Lucier’s lung cancer from smoking, which has metastasized to his brain.   Alexander and Paul state that Lucier, who is married and has a seven year-old daughter, “will die prematurely; he has less than a 2% chance of living another five years.”

    Alexander and Paul state that Philip Morris and RJR, “along with the other cigarette manufacturers, have, over the course of decades, misrepresented, concealed, suppressed, and failed to disclose information known to them concerning the addictive and harmful properties of their product.   The defendants have affirmatively misled the American public.”   Plaintiffs Laurence Lucier and his wife, Laurie Lucier, “seek to hold Defendants Philip Morris and RJR responsible for the consequences of their decades-long fraud.”

    Alexander and Paul argue that “Philip Morris and RJR knew that cigarettes kill, but that if the word ever got out, they would lose billions of dollars.   They moreover manipulated chemicals and nicotine levels in the cigarettes so that they would be even more addictive.   We expect that at trial’s end, the jury will properly return a verdict against Philip Morris and RJR and will rightly award substantial sums to the plaintiff.   This case has broad, industry-wide implications.”   The trial is expected to last six weeks.
 

(Source: Robert Weiner Associates and Mary Alexander & Associates 301-283-0821)