Defendant corporations regarding nicotine addiction and smoker compensation
The Defendant corporations documented the results of the studies regarding disease, nicotine addiction, and smoker compensation in numerous memoranda and reports; the evidence at trial, including internal corporate documents, demonstrated that the executives crafted their corporate priorities and strategies in response to these findings.
Defendants’ own documents also support the inference that Defendants’ executives were aware that their public relations strategy of creating the impression of an “open question” about the link between smoking and disease did not square with their own knowledge about the established link between the two. For example, William Kloepfer, Vice President of Public Relations for the Tobacco Institute, wrote to Earle Clements, President of the Tobacco Institute, admitting that “[o]ur basic position in the cigarette controversy is subject to the charge, and may be subject to a finding, that we are making false or misleading statements to promote the sale of cigarettes.”
Other documents demonstrate that Defendants’ top officials were directly informed of negative research results. For example, in 1977 Philip Morris Assistant General Counsel Alexander Holtzman sent a “warning” to the company’s President, Joseph Cullman, informing him that a research project jointly sponsored by a group of the Defendant companies had concluded that exposure to cigarette smoke causes emphysema.
Defendants’ own documents also support the inference that Defendants’ executives were aware that their public relations strategy of creating the impression of an “open question” about the link between smoking and disease did not square with their own knowledge about the established link between the two. For example, William Kloepfer, Vice President of Public Relations for the Tobacco Institute, wrote to Earle Clements, President of the Tobacco Institute, admitting that “[o]ur basic position in the cigarette controversy is subject to the charge, and may be subject to a finding, that we are making false or misleading statements to promote the sale of cigarettes.”
Other documents demonstrate that Defendants’ top officials were directly informed of negative research results. For example, in 1977 Philip Morris Assistant General Counsel Alexander Holtzman sent a “warning” to the company’s President, Joseph Cullman, informing him that a research project jointly sponsored by a group of the Defendant companies had concluded that exposure to cigarette smoke causes emphysema.
