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Christensen v. Philip Morris USA Inc.6/8/2005
e result of your being advised you had a lung problem?
[MR. CHRISTENSEN]: Well, since this was a study on the causes of smoking on your lungs, I immediately felt that there was a possibility of cancer, and as a result, I stopped smoking right that very day.
[QUESTION]: .... Tell me why you decided to quit in 1976.
[MR. CHRISTENSEN]: Because I was scared to death.
[QUESTION]: Why?
[MR. CHRISTENSEN]: I had received a call from Johns Hopkins Hospital that I had a lung problem. That was the end of the conversation. They said we think you have a lung problem, and at that time I had just - - I recall it like it was yesterday. I had just purchased a pack of cigarettes, and I picked them up, crumbled them up and threw them in my waste paper basket, and that is the last cigarette I have ever bought or purchased or smoked. It was that simple.
[QUESTION]: On the basis of that one telephone conversation with the doctor?
[MR. CHRISTENSEN]: That is right.
[QUESTION]: You threw them away and never picked up another cigarette in your entire time?
[MR. CHRISTENSEN]: Never.
(Emphasis added).
Christensen learned more about his "lung problem" in a conversation with a Project employee a few weeks after the call in January 1976. The following deposition testimony is noteworthy:
[QUESTION]: Tell me to the best of your recollection the substance of this second conversation regarding your lung problem.
[MR. CHRISTENSEN]: The sum and substance of the conversation was that I had a spot on my lower right lung and a spot on the upper left lung.
[QUESTION]: Do you recall them being described as spots or lesions?
[MR. CHRISTENSEN]: Well, I don't recall. I think it was spots.
[QUESTION]: During this second conversation that we're speaking of, did you make inquiry as to the nature of these spots on your lungs?
[MR. CHRISTENSEN]: No, I did not. I don't believe it was necessary, because they made no big issue out of it.
They didn't tell me whether to stop smoking. As a matter of fact, they didn't really want me to stop smoking, because that would defeat the purpose of the project.
[QUESTION]: Did they tell you or did you ask what was the possible cause of these spots on your lungs?
[MR. CHRISTENSEN]: I don't believe I had to ask them.
[QUESTION]: Why do you say that?
[MR. CHRISTENSEN]: Because this project was to determine the effect of smoking on the person's lung. I think it's self evident.
[QUESTION]: You intuitively knew then, as I understand your testimony, that when you were advised of this lung problem, you were advised of these spots on your lungs, you intuitively knew that those spots and the lung problem were caused by your smoking; is that what you are saying?
[MR. CHRISTENSEN]: No, I'm not. I - - when I received the phone call and knowing that this was a project for lung cancer - - or for smoking, not lung cancer, but for smoking on a person's lungs, I immediately assumed the worst.
And had it been cancerous, I am certain that whomever I talked to would have told me that it was cancer. I would have no other reason to believe otherwise.
But when you are in a project that involves smoking and you come up with lung - - spots on your lung, you tend to believe the worst, and I did.
[QUESTION]: And you thought that at least there was a possibility that these spots on your lungs might be lung cancer, right?
[MR. CHRISTENSEN]: There's a possibility,
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