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Non-Tech : Philip Morris - A Stock For Wealth Or Poverty (MO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ian@SI who wrote (1878)	6/23/1998 12:41:00 PM
From: Xpiderman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6439

Appeals Court Voids Award in Tobacco Suit Fla. Ruling May Affect Many Other Cases By Saundra Torry and John Schwartz Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, June 23, 1998. washingtonpost.com A state appeals court yesterday overturned a pivotal award by a Florida jury in 1996 ordering Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. to pay $750,000 to a smoker who lost part of a lung to cancer. The appeals court in Tallahassee, Fla., ruled that the lawsuit filed by Grady Carter was barred by the statute of limitations because it was filed several days too late. But in rulings that could have far broader implications, the court found that the smoker's lawyer should not have been allowed to argue that cigarette warning labels were inadequate or to introduce certain confidential industry documents. The reversal of the 1996 verdict -- viewed by many as a turning point in the legal warfare against the once-invincible industry -- could have an effect on the wide range of lawsuits pending against the industry and on the national debate over tobacco legislation. A spokesman for Brown & Williamson, the nation's third-largest cigarette maker, declared the ruling "a big victory," noting that it was a "unanimous decision . . . on all five points" the cigarette maker had argued on appeal. The ruling, according to the industry, could affect the fate of more than 500 individual lawsuits pending nationwide against cigarette makers. "A lot of plaintiffs' lawyers, I believe, are using [this] case as a kind of a model," said a tobacco industry legal source. "So when the model is dented, that could have a discouraging effect." Carter's son, also named Grady Carter, said he was "disappointed," particularly because the cigarette companies "had tried to . . . deceive the public about what they were telling them and what they knew." The younger Carter, a chiropractor, said the family and attorneys had not had time to review the ruling and did not know whether they would or could appeal. The ruling came from a three-judge panel of the intermediate appellate court in Florida. "We're hoping that this is not the end, but we don't know yet," he said. The elder Carter, now 68, is a retired air traffic controller who started smoking Lucky Strikes in 1947 and sued the cigarette maker in 1991. The original verdict was called a "milestone" by the American Medical Assocation and other public health groups because it marked only the second time in decades of lawsuits against cigarette makers that a jury awarded damages in a smoking liability case. In addition, the case had been closely watched, in part, because Carter's lawyer, Norwood S. "Woody" Wilner, had introduced internal company documents about the dangers and addictive properties of tobacco, and had lined up additional plaintiffs to file similar suits. But yesterday the panel ruled that one of those documents, a 1963 memorandum by a Brown & Williamson attorney, -- was in fact confidential and should not have been admitted by the trial judge. The panel rejected the judge's finding that the document lost its confidentiality because it showed evidence of a "crime or fraud." The panel also ruled that Wilner should not have been allowed to argue that cigarette warning labels were inadequate and that Carter might have decided against smoking had the companies included a more detailed warning insert in their packages. The panel found that smokers received a warning once the cigarette labels went on the packs in 1969, and so could not argue these points if they smoked after that time. Since the Carter verdict, Wilner has lost another case filed on behalf of a sick smoker. But earlier this month in a third Wilner case, a Jacksonville, Fla., jury ordered Brown & Williamson to pay nearly $1 million to a dead smoker's family, marking the first time a jury had ordered a cigarette maker to pay p unitive damages in a suit filed over tobacco's health dangers. A Brown & Williamson spokesman said the company will "be reviewing the applicability" of yesterday's ruling to that case. The only other jury award against a tobacco company in a liability case was won in 1988 by the family of Rose Cipollone of New Jersey. But that $400,000 verdict was overturned on appeal, and the lawsuit was eventually dropped. Less than a week after Senate Republicans killed the tobacco bill, public health advocates and trial lawyers saw yesterday's ruling as demonstrating the need to revive national legislation to resolve pending tobacco litigation and rein in the tobacco industry. The reversal "demonstrates the danger of relying on the courts as the primary tool to bring the tobacco industry into line," said Matthew Myers of the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids. "These cases are nearly impossible to win, and it is a pipe dream to think this issue can be settled in the courts," added Washington trial lawyer John P. Coale. Separately yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused without comment an appeal by Connecticut officials trying to block federal intervention in their lawsuit against tobacco companies to recover Medicaid funds spent to treat smoking-related illnesses.