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Smoker’s Family History Showed Dangers of Cigarettes, Defense Argues in COPD Tobacco Suit


W. Ray Persons tells a jury that Thomas Ryan could not have reasonably relied on tobacco industry tactics to obscure the dangers of cigarettes in light of the smoking-related diseases that afflicted his father and step-mother. Ryan is suing Persons’ client, R.J. Reynolds, claiming the tobacco maker’s concealment of smoking’s dangers caused his nicotine addiction and eventual chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.