Benevolent Florida attorney blasts mean tobacco as big case closes
Emphasis & Descriptors Added --Duker
By Patricia Zengerle
MIAMI, June 21 (Reuters) - Big tobacco is an ''industry without a conscience'' that makes big profits by addicting millions of smokers and lying about health risks, an attorney waging a landmark multibillion-dollar class action suit against cigarette firms said on Monday.
''The only health the tobacco industry has ever been interested in is the health of their bottom line... They don't care about the health of the American people. They care about the health of what goes into their pockets,'' attorney Stanley Rosenblatt told jurors as closing arguments began.
The case, Engle vs. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. et al., is the first class action suit against the tobacco industry brought by smokers to go to trial.
Rosenblatt accused cigarette makers of selling a dangerous and defective product and conspiring for decades to hide the harmful effects of smoking. The plaintiffs claim between 40,000 and one million Floridians may have been sickened by smoking and may be entitled to $200 billion to $500 billion in damages.
''This is an industry without a conscience and you know it,'' Rosenblatt told the jurors.
Lawyers for cigarette firms have denied any conspiracy and said that smokers make informed choices for which they are responsible. They are scheduled to make their closing arguments on Wednesday and Thursday, after Rosenblatt finishes his two-day statement on Tuesday.
The case is expected to go to the jury on Friday or Monday, after Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Robert Kaye gives the panel detailed instructions.
The trial has been closely watched by investors concerned about the precedent it might set for tobacco litigation.
Rosenblatt and his wife Susan scored a longshot victory in October 1997 by forcing a $350 million settlement mid-trial in a class action suit on behalf of nonsmoking airline flight attendants who claimed they were sickened by secondhand smoke.
They filed the current suit on behalf of Dr. Howard Engle, a pediatrician who suffers from emphysema. Monday's closing argument was made to a courtroom packed with members of the class, some in wheelchairs or with portable oxygen tanks.
It began with jury selection almost one year ago on July 6, making the case one of the longest civil trials in U.S. legal history. Rosenblatt told jurors Monday it could be the longest civil case ever. Opening statements began on Oct. 19.
Rosenblatt also used his closing argument to contend that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. (NYSE:RJR - news), Philip Morris Cos Inc. (NYSE:MO - news), the Brown & Williamson unit of Brtish American Tobacco Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BATS.L) and other cigarette firms worked together to hide the risks of smoking.
''The tobacco industry in this country has come closer, has come closer, to fooling all of the people all of the time and for a longer period of time than any industry in the history of this country,'' he said. ''... They are skillful, they are clever.''
To make his case that tobacco industry executives toed ''a party line'' in arguing for years that there was no proven link between smoking and disease, he quoted from the testimony of breakaway cigarette company leader Bennett LeBow, chairman of Brooke Group Ltd. (NYSE:BGL - news). Brooke Group's Liggett unit makes Chesterfield cigarettes and more than 200 other brands.
LeBow has repeatedly testified since 1997 against other tobacco firms as part of independent legal settlements between Liggett and attorneys generals suing the tobacco industry.
The jury's verdict in the Engle class action suit will not necessarily put an end to the marathon proceeding.
If jurors found the cigarette companies liable in the class action, individual trials would have to be held to determine damages for each victim of cancer, emphysema and other diseases blamed on smoking.
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