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Elements of the cigarette-fire.

Article Excerpt
The notion of a fire-safe cigarette has been smoldering for years in tobacco industry documents and government publications, but this alternate design has been slow to reach the market. Is it that the tobacco industry can't manufacture the less hazardous cigarettes, or that it won't?

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Over the last decade, lawsuits and the media have brought to the public's attention the health dangers of cigarette smoking, as well as the tobacco industry's vulnerability to the pressures of litigation. Yet the industry has rarely been called to account tot the tendency of discarded or abandoned cigarettes to cause fires that lead to injuries, deaths, and property damage.

Ongoing legislative efforts to regulate cigarettes' ignition propensity public access to tobacco industry documents via the Internet, and the marketing of cigarettes that are designed to burn more slowly have produced a wide array of information plaintiffs can use to recover tot injuries and damages.

Although there are many scenarios for cigarette fires, the typical one occurs when a smoker tails asleep and a lit cigarette falls onto bedding or upholstered furniture. The cigarette may become wedged in a crevice or between cushions or bedding, the fabric smolders and soon the bedding or furniture ignites, followed quickly by a total conflagration. Often these fires occur in the early morning hours while potential victims are asleep. It is not uncommon for the smoker to be elderly, intoxicated, or extremely fatigued and therefore unaware of the fire. The resulting damage is often devastating.

Is a products liability case viable? Which plaintiffs have a reasonable chance of success? When determining the viability of a claim, consider the availability of adequate evidence. You may strongly suspect a smoldering cigarette, but because fire is likely to destroy the cigarette, there may be inadequate scientific bases for a reliable cause-and-origin conclusion. For the same reason, you may not be able to identify the cigarette manufacturer. Therefore, you should focus on the fundamental principles of case selection early:

* Evaluate the client's status in relation to the cigarette and the fire. All else being equal, smokers make less sympathetic plaintiffs.

* Measure the strength of the investigating fire department's cause-and-origin findings and your experts' ability to concur with and bolster those findings. *

* Identify the cigarette manufacturer through analysis of any filter debris and testimony from the smoker's relatives, acquaintances, coworkers, and neighborhood retailers regarding his or her preferred brand.

Pay careful attention to the time frame in which the fire occurred. There is only a small window of time during which the cigarette can be dropped, smolder under low but adequate oxygenation, combust, and injure the smoker and others.

Besides the smoker, many potential victims can be exposed to injury, death, and damage from smoldering-cigarette fires. Innocent family members in a home, strangers in adjoining apartments or hotel rooms, firefighters attempting rescues, and property, owners and their subrogated insurance carriers are...

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