Big Tobacco On Trial In Massachusetts

WOBURN, MA — Patricia Greene, 61, of Newton, started smoking when she was in middle school. In 2013, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Now she wants the company that made the Marlboro cigarettes she favored and the supermarket that sold them to her to pay.

Greene v. Philip Morris got underway with opening arguments in Woburn Superior Court last Thursday. In her complaint, Greene argues that the design of Phillip Morris's Marlboro cigarettes caused her cancer, which has spread to her brain and caused kidney failure. The trial is expected to last through this week.

Greene is seeking damages from Phillip Morris and Star Market, claiming she primarily purchased cigarettes from the supermarket's Brighton location.

"Philip Morris has engaged in a variety of strategies to addict young people to smoking, such as cigarette giveaways in downtown Boston, in which cigarettes were given to minors, including Patricia Walsh Greene," the complaint reads. "These strategies were designed to put Philp Morris’ Marlboro cigarettes into the hands of minors and/or were carried out with reckless disregard for whether the persons to whom its cigarettes were distributed were minors."

In opening arguments last week, attorneys for Phillip Morris said they would present evidence showing Greene smoked less than a pack a day for 15 years, but quit 25 years before her cancer diagnosis. "With that limited amount of smoking, and how young she was when she quit, how long she quit before being diagnosed, it’s simply not likely that it was smoking that caused [her] lung cancer," attorney John Wunderli told jurors.