Cigarette smoking causes about 80% of all COPD deaths in the United States. The major tobacco companies knew their products caused chronic, irreversible lung damage and kept selling them anyway. If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with COPD, emphysema, or chronic bronchitis after a history of smoking, you may have a case.
Board Certified trial lawyer Alex Alvarez and medical-legal expert Herb Borroto, M.D., J.D., handle cigarette COPD and emphysema cases for smokers and their families in Hawaii, Oregon, New Mexico, Illinois, and Florida. Free review. No fees unless we recover money for you.
By Alex Alvarez, Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer • Reviewed by Herb Borroto, M.D., J.D., Medical-Legal Expert • Last reviewed:
If all three of the boxes below describe your situation, a free case review is worth 15 minutes. You do not have to be 100% sure about any of them — close is close enough at this stage.
Most cigarette COPD cases involve smokers who used cigarettes regularly for years or decades, often starting before the public knew the full risks. It does not matter what brand you smoked, what state you lived in when you started, or whether you quit a long time ago. The cumulative damage from past smoking is what matters.
A confirmed diagnosis is the medical foundation of any case. This includes emphysema, chronic bronchitis, asthma-COPD overlap (ACO), and severe-stage COPD requiring oxygen or pulmonary rehab. The diagnosis can be recent or from years ago — what matters is the date and the medical record.
Our firm currently handles cigarette COPD cases in Hawaii, Oregon, New Mexico, Illinois, and Florida. The state where the case can be filed depends on where you lived when you smoked, where you were diagnosed, and where you live now. If you are unsure, the free review will sort it out. Wrongful-death cases for a deceased loved one are handled in those same five states.
Free, confidential, and there is no fee unless we recover money for you.
The link between cigarettes and COPD is one of the most thoroughly documented findings in modern medicine. The numbers below come directly from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute — not from law firms.
Of COPD deaths
are caused by cigarette smoking, according to the CDC.
Americans diagnosed with COPD
the third or fourth leading cause of death in the U.S., depending on the year.
More likely to die from COPD
are people who smoke compared to people who never smoked.
COPD — chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — is the umbrella term for several long-term lung diseases that block airflow and make breathing harder over time. The two best-known forms are emphysema, which destroys the small air sacs in the lungs, and chronic bronchitis, which inflames and narrows the airways. Most people with COPD have features of both.
The damage cigarette smoke causes to the lungs is gradual and, in most cases, irreversible. Carcinogens and irritants destroy the alveoli (air sacs) where the lungs exchange oxygen, scar the bronchial tubes, and trigger chronic inflammation that does not stop even after a smoker quits. Symptoms typically build over years — chronic cough, daily mucus, shortness of breath that gets worse with exertion, wheezing, chest tightness — and many smokers don't recognize the disease until breathing has become severely limited.
That is the medical picture. The legal picture is what lets a case go forward: tobacco companies knew about these dangers for decades and chose to hide them. Internal industry documents released through prior litigation show cigarette manufacturers tracking their own research on lung damage as early as the 1950s and continuing to deny it publicly long after that.
A COPD diagnosis can be classified in several ways. The categories below are the forms most commonly linked to smoking, and any of them can support a case.
Emphysema destroys the small air sacs (alveoli) in the lungs where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged. Once destroyed, those sacs do not regenerate. Patients often need supplemental oxygen as the disease progresses.
Heavily linked to a long smoking history; the most common smoking-caused form of COPD.
Chronic bronchitis inflames the bronchial tubes that carry air to and from the lungs. It is defined clinically as a productive cough lasting at least 3 months in two consecutive years. Patients produce excessive mucus and have frequent flare-ups.
Smoking is by far the most common cause; even after quitting, the inflammation can persist for years.
ACO describes patients who have features of both asthma and COPD. Smokers who developed asthma-like reactivity earlier in life and then progressed to COPD are commonly diagnosed with ACO. The condition typically progresses faster than COPD alone and responds less well to standard COPD treatment.
"GOLD" is the standard COPD severity scale, ranging from stage 1 (mild) to stage 4 (very severe). Severe and very-severe COPD often requires daily supplemental oxygen, regular hospital admissions for exacerbations, and may end with respiratory failure. Severe-stage cases often have the strongest causation evidence.
The most common reason smokers don't pursue a case is that they assume they can't — that because they chose to smoke, they have no claim against the companies that sold them cigarettes. Courts across the country have rejected that argument for one simple reason: the tobacco companies committed fraud.
The major U.S. cigarette manufacturers — including Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Lorillard, and Liggett — spent decades publicly denying what their own internal scientists had already proven. They funded misleading research, manipulated nicotine levels to make their products more addictive, and aimed marketing at young people who could not have given informed consent. None of that is up for debate — it is on the record in federal court.
In 2006, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler issued a 1,683-page ruling in United States v. Philip Morris USA finding that the major cigarette companies had violated the federal RICO racketeering statute through a 50-year fraud scheme. That ruling was upheld on appeal. It sits in the public record alongside the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement and millions of pages of internal industry documents released through prior litigation.
What that means for an individual case: a smoker does not have to prove from scratch that cigarette companies lied. The federal courts have already found it. An individual case still has to prove the medical link between that specific smoker's history and their specific diagnosis, but the underlying fraud is established public record.
Every state sets a deadline — called a statute of limitations — for filing a personal injury or wrongful death case. Once it passes, a case usually cannot be brought, no matter how strong the evidence is. The deadlines below are general; the discovery rule and other state-specific factors can shift them.
2 years
From the date of diagnosis or death. Florida has its own discovery rule for cases where the harm wasn't apparent right away.
2 years
From the date of diagnosis or death. Illinois courts apply the discovery rule in cases where the smoking-disease link wasn't known until later.
2 years
From the date the harm was, or reasonably should have been, discovered. Hawaii has strong consumer-protection laws relevant to tobacco cases.
2 years
From the date the smoker knew or reasonably should have known of the smoking-disease connection. Oregon's product liability statute can also apply in some cases.
3 years
From the date of diagnosis or death for personal injury cases; longer for some wrongful-death and product liability claims.
Don't guess
The discovery rule, wrongful death rules, and pending litigation all affect the actual deadline in your case.
Confirm Your DeadlineA note on Florida: Florida has a long history of tobacco litigation, including the Engle class action. The Florida Supreme Court closed that class to new filings on January 11, 2008, so no new Florida smoker can file as an "Engle progeny" plaintiff today. But Florida smokers can still pursue standard product liability and fraud cases against the tobacco companies — and the Engle court's findings about the industry's conduct remain part of the public record those new cases can rely on. Read more on the Engle class →
If a parent, spouse, sibling, or child died of COPD or its complications after a history of smoking, your family may be able to bring a wrongful-death case against the tobacco companies. The same fraud and concealment evidence that supports a living smoker's case supports a wrongful-death claim — and many of the most significant verdicts in tobacco litigation have been wrongful-death cases brought by surviving families.
Each state has its own rules about who can file a wrongful-death case and on what timeline. In general, surviving spouses, children, and (in some states) parents and siblings have standing. The deadline usually starts on the date of death, though state-specific rules vary. Even if a smoker passed away years ago, it is worth a call — some windows are longer than people assume.
We handle these cases with care. Pulling medical records, identifying the responsible cigarette brands from the smoker's history, and connecting the medical and legal evidence is what the firm does — and it costs nothing to find out whether a case is possible.
You do not have to gather any of this before calling — we handle records requests for our clients at no cost. But if you want to be ready for a productive first conversation, the following items are the most useful.
A rough smoking history
Approximate years smoked, brands smoked (a few names is fine), about how many cigarettes per day, when you quit (if you have).
The diagnosis date and stage
The month and year of the COPD or emphysema diagnosis, the form (emphysema, chronic bronchitis, ACO), and the GOLD stage if you know it. Approximate is fine.
Treating physician and hospital names
The pulmonologist or primary care doctor who diagnosed the COPD, plus the hospital or clinic where any pulmonary function tests (PFTs) were performed.
State residency history
Where you (or the person who passed) lived during the smoking years and where you live now — this affects which state's law applies.
For wrongful-death cases: date of death and surviving family
If you are calling on behalf of a loved one who passed, the date of death and a rough list of surviving family members (spouse, children, etc.).
What people ask most often about COPD cases — with plain-English answers.
The CDC reports that cigarette smoking causes about 80% of all COPD deaths in the United States. Smokers are 12 to 13 times more likely to die from COPD than people who have never smoked. Cigarette smoke damages the alveoli (air sacs), inflames the airways, and causes scarring — and that damage continues even after a person quits, which is why former smokers can be diagnosed with COPD years or decades after their last cigarette.
Yes. Many of the COPD cases filed against tobacco companies involve former smokers who quit years before their diagnosis. The lung damage caused by past smoking does not heal, and COPD often progresses long after the last cigarette. What matters legally is the smoking history and the link between that history and the diagnosis — not whether the person is still smoking today.
Possibly. Federal courts have already found that the major U.S. tobacco companies — including Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, and Lorillard — committed fraud and racketeering by hiding what they knew about smoking and disease for decades. That public record, including the 2006 federal RICO ruling and the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, supports lawsuits filed by smokers and their families.
All major forms of smoking-linked COPD support a case. This includes emphysema, chronic bronchitis, asthma-COPD overlap (ACO), and severe-stage COPD requiring oxygen or pulmonary rehab. Even smokers who were given a more general diagnosis like "COPD, unspecified" may qualify — the firm's medical-legal review can identify the specific form from the records.
Each state has its own statute of limitations. In Florida and Illinois the deadline is generally 2 years from the date of diagnosis or death. In Hawaii, Oregon, and New Mexico the windows vary, and the discovery rule may apply. Because these deadlines are strict, the only safe answer is to call as soon as possible after a diagnosis or after a loved one's death — even a short delay can permanently bar a case.
Surviving family members can bring wrongful-death lawsuits on behalf of a smoker who died from COPD or its complications, including respiratory failure and pneumonia secondary to COPD. The same fraud and concealment evidence that supports a living smoker's case supports a wrongful-death claim, and surviving spouses, children, and other family members may be eligible to recover. State law controls who can file and what time limits apply.
Every factual claim on this page is supported by a verifiable public source. Click any source below to read the original.
If a COPD or emphysema diagnosis followed years of smoking — for you or for someone you love — the only way to know whether you have a case is a free, confidential review. Statutes of limitations are strict, and waiting can permanently close the door.
No Fees Unless We Recover Money for You.
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Decades of internal documents proving the cigarette industry knew the risks.
