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CARSON CITY, Nev. (Legal Newsline) - A woman who admits she never smoked an R.J. Reynolds cigarette nevertheless can sue the company for consumer fraud, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled, rejecting the tobacco company’s argument her claim should have been dismissed.
The Nevada Deceptive Trade Practices Act allows consumers to sue over false representations made in any “sale or attempt to sell,” the high court ruled, and “attempt to sell” by definition means the company tried and failed. In this case, plaintiff Sandra Camacho claims R.J. Reynolds participated in an industry-wide conspiracy to hide the dangers of smoking, without which she wouldn’t have taken up the habit or contracted cancer.
A trial judge initially dismissed Camacho’s NDTPA claim because she said she only smoked products made by Liggett and Philip Morris. But then the judge reconsidered, restoring Reynolds to the case based on the “sale or attempt to sell” reasoning.
Reynolds appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court seeking a writ of mandamus, or extraordinary pretrial intervention in the case. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal, but a three-judge panel upheld the trial court’s decision in a July 28 ruling.
“To read `victim’ to mean only a person who used the product would needlessly narrow the remedial reach of the NDTPA,” they ruled, in an opinion by Justice Elissa Cadish. “The plain language of the NDTPA contemplates situations in which liability may be found even when, like here, an individual did not actually purchase or use the product.”
In dissent, Justice Kristina Pickering said the court properly dismissed the mandamus request but dissented from its finding that Reynolds could be sued under the NDTPA.
“Trial in this case starts next month,” Justice Pickering wrote. “If Reynolds loses, it can directly appeal. This court will then have before it a fully developed legal and factual record on which to decide the issues involved.”