By Nicole Demouth
Take this and smoke it
Last week in Los Angeles, a jury awarded Betty Bullock of Newport Beach, CA, 28 billion dollars in punitive damages as a result of her lawsuit against Phillip Morris Cos., after learning she had developed lung cancer caused by over thirty years of smoking cigarettes. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous?
First of all, she was awarded 28 billion dollars, which is too much money for anyone to spend wisely and/or completely, especially a 64-year-old with lung cancer. There’s no way she’ll spend even a million of it before she passes on from the life-threatening disease that is, surprisingly, not crucial enough to keep her from countless afternoons in court. You might suggest she use the money to purchase a medical miracle of some sort, which steams me more than you can believe, because unlike this woman, I sympathize for the other cancer-stricken individuals who don’t have godlike amounts of money to blow on a cure, nor the energy to fight a legal battle when they can barely fight an internal battle. Moreso, there are also individuals with other forms of cancer who did not induce it on themselves by smoking, but are suffering and have no way of inventing any reason to sue anyone! Bullock brought this on herself. She is suing for fraud when she’s the con.
My second reason for disgust regarding Ms. Bullock’s dilemma, if you can even bring yourself to call it that, exists when I wonder who the jury was that heard this woman admit to smoking since she was seventeen while knowing what tobacco can do to a person, and still found her in the right to receive this settlement? I believe they were either one of two types of people. Either they have never had a friend or family member, who smoked and met the likely consequences, or they do have a friend or family member who smokes at present and they are frantically scheming a lawsuit to live leisurely for the rest of their lives. It makes you wonder, if anything ever happens to you or I and we find ourselves being tried by a jury, what kind of nut-jobs will be deciding our case?
I can’t believe the judge even allowed such a large settlement amount! Imagine walking up to William Gates and telling him to forget Harvard, forget sleepless nights in an office, just start smoking now while he’s still in high school and in a few decades, he’ll be set for life. In fact, why doesn’t everyone start smoking right now? In time, we can buy a 24-karat gold oxygen machine and swap stories about the good old days.
I do not have a problem with smokers. Trust that I am one nonsmoker that enjoys taking smoke breaks. However, I have a problem with Betty Bullock and other idiots who engage in something they supposedly love, and then weasel their way out of it when they find themselves in a bind.
Phillip Morris Cos. was hit hard, and I think it was unfair. Tobacco is legal; there’s nothing we can do about it. For tens of decades, there have been millions of people coping with illnesses caused by smoking. It is not a new concept! Not only is there a warning label on the side of the cigarette pack, but the Attorney General of the United States approved it himself, and so did every one before him.
I’ve been contemplating for a long time whether I could sue the organization that puts out the TRUTH advertisements on television. It’s simple, really; I am not a smoker, and since the tobacco companies had to remove their smoking commercials, I haven’t considered smoking. The TRUTH ads that I see every hour on the hour, so it seems, have really sparked my interest. Perhaps I should start smoking, three packs a day, of course, because I have some years to catch up on, and then when I get sick, I’ll sue TRUTH. Mark my words, if this was ever a possibility, I wouldn’t take the money, but I’d take down TRUTH.
Let people make their own choices about smoking or not smoking. Let parents talk to their kids, not a television ad. Most of all, please, someone step in and reduce Bullock’s settlement to zero.
