[Intl-tobacco] Russia: Local Pensioner Suing Cigarette Company (fwd)

[Robert Weissman]

Local Pensioner Suing Cigarette Company
by Molly Graves and Galina Stolyarova / STAFF WRITERS
Source: St. Petersburg Times (Russia), Tuesday, 4/3/01

A St. Petersburg pensioner is claiming damages of $71,500 from local
cigarette producer Petro, in the first law suit against a tobacco company
to be heard in a Russian court.

Ivan Prokopenko, represented by the city-based law firm OSV, is demanding
compensation for the cancer which resulted in the removal of one of his
lungs.  Prokopenko says that the cancer, diagnosed two years ago, was the
result of smoking Belomorkanal, a non-filtered papirosa cigarette, made by
Petro.

Petro is owned by multinational tobacco corporation Japan Tobacco
International (JTI). It also produces the Winston, Camel, Russky Stil and
Peter I brands.  Petro produced around 50 billion cigarettes last year,
according to the Vedomosti business daily.

"Doctors from the St. Petersburg City Oncology Center who treated and
operated on Prokopenko have concluded that his illness was the result of
smoking," said Sergei Osutin, director of OSV, in an interview on Monday.
He said that the doctors would appear as witnesses in the case.

While the 2 million ruble sum involved is small compared to the
multi-billion-dollar judgements handed out by cigarette companies in the
United States, the suit, heard in the Nevsky District Court, is being seen
as a test case by both smokers and local tobacco firms.

Unlike more recent additions to the local cigarette market, the Belomor
brand has been around for decades - with Prokopenko himself a Belomor
smoker for some 40 years.

Prokopenko was unavailable for comment on Monday. However, he said to
Vedomosti daily that he had smoked brands other than Belomorkanal in the
past, including some Bulgarian makes. He added: "I haven't smoked at all
for the last eight years."

Andrei Rogov, JTI spokesperson for Russia, told The St. Petersburg Times
on Monday that the company would "vigorously defend [its] position during
the court proceedings."

"We consider Mr. Prokopenko's statement of claim against Petro in
connection with the injury to his health allegedly caused by smoking
Belomorkanal papirosy to be unfounded," he said.

JTI is following the lead of past suits in the United States and
elsewhere, which argue for the "personal responsibility" of the smoker -
claiming smokers know exactly what they are risking when they voluntarily
choose to light up.

Besides collecting medical documentation, JTI's lawyers went one step
further by raising the claimant's personal history - saying at the hearing
last Wednesday that Prokopenko had been exposed to carcinogenic materials
at his workplace. It was unclear exactly which materials were being
referred to.  Carcinogenic substances include asbestos, uranium, petroleum
products, and industrial dust and fumes.

In addition to monetary damages, Prokopenko's lawyers are battling for
amendments to the labeling on Belomor's cigarette packs.

"The label should say not only that smoking is harmful to people's health,
but that it leads to cancer," Osutin said.

"Cigarette smoke is a carcinogen, and those who smoke should be reminded
of this fact every time they buy tobacco."

In Russia, lung cancer is the leading killer among cancer-related deaths,
with about 85 percent of all lung-cancer cases resulting from smoking.

But it is the United States that has become the focus of tobacco lawsuits,
with numerous claims for compensation in U.S. courts from American
citizens and from abroad. For example, in January the governments of
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan filed separate suits in a Florida court, saying
U.S. tobacco companies are responsible for smoking-related illnesses,
which pose a heavy burden on the countries' health authorities.

In addition to numerous personal claims, the 1998 "National Tobacco
Settlement"  in the United States awarded around $200 billion to 46 states
over a 25-year period, to be paid by the largest tobacco companies such as
Philip Morris and JTI (then RJ Reynolds). The award was meant to help
cover treatment costs for smoking-related ailments such as heart disease
and cancer, as well as to supplement the falling income of tobacco
farmers.

The central argument in such cases has been that consumers have been
misled - and that tobacco companies are using addiction to sell their
product at the expense of human health and should therefore be held
accountable for the resulting damage.

Unidentified representatives of British American Tobacco were quoted by
Kommersant last week as saying that a flood of multi-million tobacco cases
was unlikely to happen in Russia. The paper also quoted a source in Philip
Morris as saying that the company had not been on the Russian market long
enough to have damaged anyone's health.

However, Osutin said that if Pro ko pen ko's case is settled out of court
or the judge rules in his favor, hundreds of others will follow. In this
case, companies such as JTI could be parting with substantially larger
sums, he said.

Osutin added that whatever the verdict of the court, the case would not
stop there. "Both sides take this matter very seriously, and neither side
will stop trying to prove themselves right," he said.

The next hearing of Prokopenko's case is scheduled for Thursday, to allow
time for both sides to complete additional medical evaluations.