The false statements identified by the district court would be important to a reasonable person purchasing cigarettes.
The fact that Defendants continually denied any link between smoking and cancer, see, e.g., id. at 204, suggests they themselves considered the matter material. So, too, regarding Defendants’ false statements on other topics, including statements concerning: whether smoking is addictive,
whether Defendants manipulated their cigarettes to control nicotine delivery, whether “light” cigarettes were less harmful than other cigarettes, whether secondhand smoke is hazardous to non-smokers, i and whether Defendants concealed scientific research and destroyed documents.
Each of these topics is an important consideration for a reasonable person because each concerns direct and significant consequences of smoking. When deciding whether to smoke cigarettes, tobacco consumers must resolve initial reservations (or lingering qualms) about the potential for cancer, the risk of addiction, or the hazardous effects of secondhand smoke for friends, family, and others who may be exposed. Defendants’ prevarications about each of these issues suggests full awareness of this obvious fact; reasonable purchasers of cigarettes would consider these statements important.
Defendants further argue that, because the scientific community had reached a consensus regarding the severely adverse health consequences of smoking, their statements to the contrary would not be believed.
The question, 40 however, is not whether a reasonable person would have believed Defendants’ false statements, but only whether a reasonable person would have considered the issue “of importance,” and the issues considered by the district court clearly met the materiality threshold.