Tobacco Documents Online

RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH Section A Page 8 Saturday, 8/24/96 Saturday, August 24, 1996 2077409656 SMOKE UNDER FIRE Jury rules in favor of tobacco industry Ccmipanies, found jwt responsible in smaker's death Ttu> AssocuitD PRESS are dangerous," Anderson added. rNtaahnrous - A jury yesterday found ciga- jette companies not responsible for a smoker s cancer death, a break for a tobacco industry that lost a similar lawsuit this month. - After deliberating 16 hours, the Indiana jury rejected claims from the widow of Richard Rogers that the companies were to blame for his smoking pddiction that began at age 5 and ended with his death in 1987 at 52. The Rogers verdict, coming on a day when President Clinton approved historic limits on the marketing of cigarettes to children, took on ex- treme importance as the industry wondered whether the 6de of opinion in America's court- rooms has turned against it. "We seem to do a little better in courtrooms than in newspapers and on te{evision," Bill Ohle- meyer, an attorney for co-defendant Philip Morris Cos., said after the verdict - Tobacco lawyers said Rogers chose to smoke, Earlier this . month, a Florida jury awarded despite warnings of the potential risks. ,$750,000 to a man who got lung cancer after 44 •"We were very strong in our feeling that per- years of smoking. It-was only the second time a sonal responsibility is very important," said jury jury has ruled against the industry: The first ver- foreman David Anderson. dict was overturned on appeal. "This case is not a case of whether cigarettes In closing arguments of the Indianapolis lawsuit, which sought at least $424,000 in damages, plain- tiff's attorney C. Warren Holland told jurors Rog- ers was addicted to cigarettes even before the 1964 surgeon general's warning about smoking, and that tobacco companies were aware all along that their product was "unreasonably dangerous." But the tobacco companies said Rogers had continued to smoke willingly, and was up to three packs a day, despite a public perception of dangers heightened by the surgeon general's report on smoking and then by cigarette warning labels. When asked shortly before his death by a tobac- co executive why he hadn't stopped smoking ear& er, Rogers had said, "I really didn't want to quit," Philip Morris lawyer David Hardy told jurors. The other companies involved in the lawsuit were R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., a unit of RJR Nabisco Holdings Co.; American Tobacco Co., owned by BA.T. Industries PLC; and Liggett Group Inc. of Brooke Group PLC. 0 0 0