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$10 billion suit claims secondhand smoke caused cancer
THE SUN HERALD PASCAGOULA - Three years ago, John A. Collier was diagnosed with throat cancer, a medical condition developed by being exposed to secondhand smoke. Now, he has filed a $10 billion class-action lawsuit against the big five cigarette companies. Collier, 48, a retired Navy petty officer and patrolman with the Meridian police department, said Wednesday from his Lauderdale County home that the tobacco companies have known for decades that secondhand smokes causes cancer. "They should have notified the public," said Collier, who has never smoked nor chewed tobacco. "The secondhand smoke is as hazardous of the cigarettes themselves." In the class action lawsuit, filed against R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, Lorillard, Brown & Williamson and Liggett in U.S. District Court in Biloxi on May 27 said: "Defendants have known for many years that cigarettes guarantee death, cancer, heart disease, pain, agony . . ." Collier said he was exposed to secondhand smoke in a confined area while serving aboard a ship during the Vietnam War and later as a patrolman riding in a small area of a police cruiser. "I never smoke, and I was exposed to secondhand smoke for 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 25 years," said Collier, whose throat cancer is in remission, though he cannot work. Meanwhile, spokesmen for the tobacco companies said they had not received copies of the class action. "We do not comment on litigation we have not seen," Nat Walker, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds, said from Winston-Salem, N.C. "Sometimes these things can either take a long time or short time." Louis Fondren, the Pascagoula lawyer for Collier, said the lawsuit was filed in federal court because it is a class action of more than $75,000. "But I picked (the Coast) because this is an area," he said, "which could have more seaman and police officers who could have been exposed to long-term secondhand smoke in an enclosed area." Fondren said only people who were seamen or police officers with medical documentation of long-term exposure to secondhand smoke could join the class action.
Donald V. Adderton can be reached at 896-2303 or at DAdderton@aol.com |