Tobacco firm to pay compensation to family of late COPD patient

ANKARA

In a precedent case, a Turkish court has decided that an international tobacco company will pay 500,000 Turkish Liras (around $14,141) in compensation to the family of a person who passed away due to COPD, a type of progressive lung disease primarily caused by smoking.

Lawyer Sinem Yılmazel filed the lawsuit for mental anguish following her father Adnan Yılmazel’s death in 2017 after years of struggling with COPD.

Pointing out that smoking was a contributing role in the development of COPD, Yılmazel asserted that even though the legal system permitted the selling of cigarettes, they included addictive substances. Her father, therefore, had been hooked on smoking for over 50 years and was unable to stop, subsequently succumbing to a lung illness and losing his life.

Yılmazel asserted that the warning on cigarette packaging only lists the risks in a single cigarette and does not cover the full package, indicating that tobacco producers do not take the appropriate care in presenting this information. She added that her father began smoking when he was around 12 or 13, underlining that during that time, there were also no restrictions on selling cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18 and the act of smoking was predominantly promoted.

These formed the motivation for Yılmazel to commence proceedings, accusing the relevant tobacco corporation for intentionally putting a dangerous product on the market and concealing or minimizing the hazardous effects from customers.

Yılmazel therefore endeavored to prove that smoking was indeed the cause of her father’s death throughout the trial, despite the lawyer for the defendant company’s requesting the dismissal of the case, arguing that the defendant complied with the laws and the individuals are responsible for the outcomes of excessive smoking.

Though with bittersweet feelings, Yılmazel at long last won the case, alleging forensic medical reports, hospital reports and other scientific reports. “I prevailed in the lawsuit yet I'm still extremely sorry. It’s true that this is a precedence case, however, I would have rather my father had survived,” she said.