“Are you awake now? Do you hear what the jury is saying? You have to stop,” Cynthia Robinson wants to tell the tobacco industry. The Florida widow recently won a $23.6 billion lawsuit against tobacco company R.J. Reynolds, one of the largest recent judgments on the industry, and in an interview with TIME, she says she hopes they listen to the jury’s message.
Robinson’s husband Michael Johnson died in 1996 at age of 36 from lung cancer, and in her lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds, she and her attorneys argued that the company was aware that cigarettes were addictive and caused lung cancer, but was negligent in telling smokers like Johnson about those risks.
altho we all know you can tell ppl show them and beg them but if they love to smoke they will.. so sad
I am sorry this woman lost her husband and I am sorry he died at such a young age. That being said, are you kidding me? He died in 1996 and he was not aware of the damages that smoking has on your lungs. I have been a respiratory therapist since 1989 and the statistics were out then. There is no way that they were unaware. The message has been on the side of a cigarette pack well before 1996 “she and her attorneys argued that the company was aware that cigarettes were addictive and caused lung cancer, but was negligent in telling smokers like Johnson about those risks”. Nobody wants to accept responsibility for their own actions.