Jones Day's Jennifer Weizenecker delivers closing arguments for R.J. Reynolds at trial over the throat cancer that killed a New Mexico man who had smoked the company's cigarettes for decades. Jurors ultimately cleared the tobacco company of responsibility. Watch the trial.
Santa Fe, NM— Jurors last week cleared R.J. Reynolds of responsibility for the fatal throat cancer a New Mexico man suffered after smoking the company’s cigarettes for decades. Perez v. R.J. Reynolds, D-101-CV-201902017.
The state court jury, in New Mexico’s First Judicial District, concluded the suit against Reynolds over the laryngeal cancer that ultimately killed Juan Gonzales was barred by the applicable statute of limitations. Moreover, jurors specifically found for Reynolds in each of the underlying claims of defect, negligence, and conspiracy.
The jury also cleared retail chain Allsup’s Convenience Stores, which had allegedly sold Gonzalez Reynolds cigarettes.
Gonzales, 79 at his death in 2019, smoked for roughly half a century before quitting cigarettes in 2008, when he was first diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. Gonzales underwent treatment for the disease and was declared cancer-free by doctors. However, he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer again in 2016, which ultimately proved fatal.
The nine-day trial turned in large part on whether the disease diagnosed in 2016 was a recurrence of the disease in 2008, which would bar the lawsuit under the statute of limitations.
During his closing argument, Bruster PLLC’s Keith Langston, representing Gonzales’ family, reminded jurors of Gonzales' treatment and exam history in arguing that the 2016 diagnosis was a new, second development of cancer. Langston told jurors that Gonzales’ treating physician concluded multiple times from 2009 to 2014 that Gonzales had no evidence of recurring disease, and then, from 2014-2016, concluded he had no residual cancer.
“If you look at the records and the words used by his treating physician, you will find that Mr. Gonzales’ 2016 cancer was a second primary cancer,” Langston told jurors.
But in her closing, Jones Day’s Jennifer Weizenecker, representing Reynolds, reminded jurors of evidence she said established that the 2016 diagnosis was a recurrence of the disease originally diagnosed eight years earlier. Weizenecker told jurors that both cancer diagnoses were made in the same location on Gonzales’ left vocal cord. And she added that pathology reports from 2010-2012 showed “high-grade dysplasia,” which Weizenecker said meant that cancer cells remained, despite the earlier treatment.
“We know those cancerous cells remained, and then they grow back into the 2016 [cancer diagnosis],” Weizenecker said. “That is what a recurrence is.”
Email Arlin Crisco at acrisco@cvn.com.
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