“Overabundance of Information” on Smoking’s Dangers Available to Smoker: Tobacco Defense

Ray Persons tells jurors Thomas Hardin should have known about smoking’s dangers, based on media reports and Hardin’s own personal knowledge, and R.J. Reynolds “could not conceal what is already known” about those health risks.  Hardin, a decades-long smoker, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2012. His wife, Joyce is suing Persons’ client, R.J. Reynolds, claiming the tobacco maker’s concealment of smoking’s hazards led to her husband’s nicotine addiction and COPD.