Tobacco Co. Accused of Illegal Marketing in Wrongful Death Case

Lorillard Tobacco Company is headed to trial in Suffolk Superior Court for targeting young black children into becoming lifelong smokers during a campaign, that started over forty years ago, where the company gave out free samples, as reported by abc News.

Marie Evans was 9 years old in 1957 when she remembered that free cigarettes were handed out in her urban neighborhood.  She traded them for candy.  But, by the time she was 13, she decided to smoke them.

Forty years later Evans died of lung cancer.

Evans' son, Willie, has filed a wrongful death suit against the third-largest tobacco company in the nation, Lorillard, for allegedly using an illegal marketing ploy to get his mother to smoke their Newport brand cigarettes.

It was against Massachusetts's law in 1957 to give cigarettes to children.  The lawsuit states that the giveaways were specifically "designed to attract African-American children and teenagers and to place cigarettes in their hands."

Edward Sweda Jr., a senior attorney for the Tobacco Product Liability Project at Boston's Northeastern University School of Law said, "This case really describes the whole history of one child being exposed to a deliberate marketing campaign of putting an addictive and deadly product into the child's hands, literally, with the foreseeable result that at some point soon thereafter she would start using that product, get addicted to it, and unfortunately, 40 years later, come down with fatal lung cancer."

Sweda continued, by citing Federal Trade Commission data, that the giveaways were common in the cigarette industry, beginning in the 50s and continuing right through to the 80s.   After television advertising ended for cigarette companies, the practice became even more widespread.

Andrew McElaney, an attorney for Lorillard, stated that the family had not shown enough evidence to prove that they were responsible for Evans' illness or death.  McElaney said that there was nothing that could "support the finding that Lorillard Tobacco Co. gave Marie Evans cigarettes."

In her 2002 deposition, Evans stated that she was given free packs 25 to 50 times from the "Newport van" that visited her Orchard Park housing complex in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood.

The lawsuit states, "At no time during any of these giveaway events did any Lorillard agent and/or representative refuse to give Marie Evans samples of Newport cigarettes because of her age.  She started smoking Newport cigarettes in part because she had access to them at no cost on a frequent basis through the Newport cigarette giveaway events conducted by Lorillard."

Evans smoked over a pack a day from the age of 13 until just before she died at age 54.

Lorillard has argued that their liability should only be for effects that occurred after 1969, as that was when Congress started the requirement that cigarettes had to have a warning label.

Evans' first health problem was a heart attack in 1984.  Lorillard attorneys argued that the lawsuit should have been filed within three years of that due to the statute of limitations.

Evans' lawyers argued that Marie Evans was not aware of illnesses like lung cancer, addictions or other health risks from smoking when she was a teenager.  She was also influenced by the ads she saw in the black magazines Jet and Ebony for her favorite Newport brand.

The executive director of the Tobacco Control and Legal Consortium, said, "You don't have to be a research expert to look at the history of advertising, which has always featured African-American models, so you know that community is targeted."

Have you, or someone you hold dear, been the victim of illegal marketing? To the point that the company behind it has caused you harm? Click here to contact a personal injury lawyer in our directory to discuss your case.