Legal

USVI Woman Sues Big Tobacco and Local Retailers, Linking Childhood Smoke Exposure and Lifelong Addiction to Cancer and Stroke

The Pate law firm has filed another lawsuit against major tobacco companies and local retailers, this time on behalf of Riise Richards, a woman in her late sixties who claims her lifelong exposure to cigarette smoke led to cancer, a stroke, and other health complications. According to the 88-page complaint filed Monday, Richards grew up constantly surrounded by cigarette smoke. Her “family members, friends, teachers, mentors, neighbors” all smoked, the lawsuit states. “Cigarette smoke was all around the plaintiff growing up and into her adult life.” The filing argues that this second-hand exposure “created in her as an early child a psychological pre-addiction to cigarette smoke, along with embedding cigarette smoke toxins into her body at a young and developing age.” Richards began smoking at age 14. Within two years, she was smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day. By 22, her consumption had increased to more than two packs daily, and she eventually married a cigarette smoker. The...