BOSTON (Legal Newsline) - A woman who started smoking when she was 15 years old is blaming the tobacco industry in court for her laryngeal cancer.
Susan Rios sued R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Philip Morris USA and Cumberland Farms in Massachusetts' Suffolk County Superior Court on May 5. The suit says she was diagnosed with cancer in November 2020 after a lifetime of smoking Newport- and Marlboro-brand cigarettes.
The suit calls those cigarettes "defective and unreasonably dangerous."
"Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and their predecessors in interest knew before and after Susan Rios began smoking that smoking their cigarettes was a cause of a variety of potentially fatal diseases, including cancer, and that the nicotine contained in their cigarettes was a highly addictive drug," the lawsuit says.
The suit makes claims for defective design, negligence, civil conspiracy, fraud and misrepresentation and violations of the state's Consumer Protection Act.
Rios is represented by ShanShan Guo and other lawyers at Public Health Advocacy Institute.