Tobacco Cos. Liable in Fla. Case
By RACHEL LA CORTE, AP
MIAMI (AP) - A landmark lawsuit by smokers yielded a verdict Wednesday that
could cost the tobacco industry billions in damages, as a jury held the companies liable
for making a defective product that causes emphysema, lung cancer and other
illnesses. The jury, which deliberated over a complicated 10-question verdict form
for seven days, will return in the next phase to determine damages.
Their decision could prove to be the industry's most dire courtroom loss yet,
since the plaintiffs are seeking at least $200 billion.
Juries have awarded damages in smoking liability cases only five times - three
were overturned on appeal and the two others are being appealed.
This case, the first class-action lawsuit by smokers to go to trial, was filed
in 1994 on behalf of as many as 500,000 sick Florida smokers and the heirs of those who
died. Plaintiffs and family members wept and hugged each other as the verdict was
read.
``The Marlboro Man just fell off his high horse into quicksand and it will be
years until the tobacco industry even gets him halfway out,'' said Ahron Leichtman,
executive director of Citizens for a Tobacco-Free Society.
Philip Morris Inc., the nation's largest cigarette maker, said it remained under
a court-imposed gag order and could not comment. The industry claimed there is no
scientific proof that smoking causes any illness and that the public is well aware that
smoking is risky.
But the jury agreed with the smokers on all counts, including their claims that
the industry deceived them about the dangers of smoking, hid research results, stopped
scientific work that promised to produce safer cigarettes and advertised to
children. The jury also found that the industry ``engaged in extreme and
outrageous conduct ... with the intent to inflict severe emotional distress.''
The $206 billion national settlement reached with the tobacco industry in
November bars states from suing to recoup the costs of treating sick smokers, but it does
not prohibit lawsuits by individuals such as this one.
Now that the industry has been found liable, the jury will decide what damages
should be awarded to the lawsuit's nine plaintiffs. Once their cases are concluded, the
half-million other members of the class will be free to file their claims.
Jurors heard eight months of testimony and were exposed to thousands of
documents from decades of tobacco litigation. Former surgeons general, ex-tobacco
industry scientists and doctors testified about the havoc smoking can wreak on the body,
the difficulty in trying to quit and the manufacturers' refusal to cooperate with health
officials.
The defendants were the nation's five biggest cigarette makers and two industry
groups: Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.,
Lorillard Tobacco Co., Liggett Group Inc., the Council for Tobacco Research and the
Tobacco Institute.
Two of the five smoking-liability cases in which juries have awarded damages
have come this year. In March, a jury in Portland, Ore., awarded $81 million to the family
of a smoker who died of lung cancer. The month before, a woman with inoperable lung cancer
won $51 million in San Francisco. Both awards were reduced by judges and are being
appealed.
But the industry has had other recent victories - it won another Oregon case as
well as lawsuits on behalf of trade unions in Ohio, three dead smokers in Tennessee and
one in Missouri. Tobacco stock prices fell after the verdict in after-hours trading.
Philip Morris lost $2.62{, or 6 percent, to close at $37.87{ on the New York
Stock Exchange. R.J. Reynolds fell $1.18}, or nearly 4 percent, to close at $30.87{.
Loew's Corp., parent of Lorillard, lost 81\ cents, or 1 percent, to close at $79.06\. Even
so, some tobacco analysts said the news wasn't all bad for the industry.
David Adelman, a tobacco analyst for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, said he expects
that the case will be decertified as a class action on appeal, greatly reducing the
potential damage award. He also pointed out that the industry will also be allowed
to use defenses in the next phase of the case that it wasn't able to raise in this one,
such as the claim that smokers should bear responsibility for their decision to smoke.
