First Anti-Smoking Class Action Suit Filed (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

First Anti-Smoking Class Action Suit Filed
by Chung Woo-sang / imagine@chosun.com
Source: Chosun Ilbo, Sunday, 12/12/99

Thirty-one people, including family members and six smoking victims, such
as 58-year-old fisherman Kim who contracted lung cancer after smoking for
42 years, filed a lawsuit against the Korea Tobacco and Ginseng Coporation
Sunday requesting W300 million in compensation for damages caused. This is
the first time a class action lawsuit has been filed against the domestic
tobacco industry, although a sailor who later died filed a lone suit last
September after he developing lung cancer.


Kim said in his suit that widespread investigations showed the corporation
knew specifically the fact that cigarettes contained cancerogenic
substances, such as nicotine and tar, but concealed the matter. Kim added
that the group were only requesting for compensation money for now but
that they will request treatment fees later.


The victims who filed the lawsuit are farmers in their 50's and 60's,
restaurant owners, former middle school teachers, and are lung cancer
patients who have smoked nearly all types of cigarettes for 29 to 42
years. The lawsuit's lawyer Bae Keum-ja revealed that more victims will be
added to it.

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