Tobacco Company Not Liable Jury Decides Victim Chose To Smoke

By the time Jean Connor was 49, she was bald and gaunt, weighed just 97 pounds and barely was able to gasp “I love you” to her daughter before dying of lung cancer.

But in the end, a jury decided Monday, it came down to personal choice, and Connor had chosen to smoke - as many as 60 cigarettes a day from 1961, when she was 15, until 1993, two years before she died.

And if Connor was responsible for her habit, then R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. was not.

The jury of five women and three men deliberated for eight hours before finding that Reynolds, maker of Winston, Salem, Camel and Doral cigarettes, was not negligent in Connor’s Oct. 1, 1995, death.

The trial was considered something of a prelude to the cases brought against the tobacco industry by 25 states that are trying to recoup billions of dollars in health care costs attributed to smoking.

“For 45 years, they have fooled a lot of people,” Connor’s sister, Dana Raulerson, said after the jury had delivered its verdict. “For them to fool six more people, one more time, really didn’t surprise me. My sister became addicted as a child and paid the price for that addiction.”

Connor’s family had sued the nation’s second-largest cigarette manufacturer for “multiple millions,” claiming the Winston-Salem, N.C., company had caused her to become addicted to its product.

Reynolds’ defense team argued that Connor was well aware of the dangers of smoking but continued to light up. Attorneys also suggested that smoking didn’t cause Connor’s lung cancer, and argued that it isn’t addictive, pointing out that 46 million smokers - including, eventually, Connor herself - have kicked the habit.

“We built a case on the truth,” said R.J. Reynolds attorney Paul Crist. “Cigarette smoking is very much a matter of personal choice.”

It was not a revolutionary defense, nor a startling verdict.

Since 1960, courts have heard 22 cases nationwide seeking damages against the tobacco industry. Just two juries have returned verdicts holding the industry liable for health hazards associated with smoking - once in June 1988 against Liggett Group Inc., and again in August, against Brown & Williamson.

The Liggett decision was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeal, and the Brown & Williamson decision has been appealed. That means no one, though an estimated 1,300 smoking-related cases have been filed, has won a cent from the industry, which grossed about $45 billion last year.

One of Connor’s attorneys, Norwood “Woody” Wilner, engineered the $750,000 Brown & Williamson verdict. Tobacco opponents had hoped that Connor’s case could change depictions of that victory from “anomaly” to “trend.”

Instead, the case spurred speculation that tobacco could gain new momentum, giving it the upper hand in any pre-trial settlement negotiations with the states seeking to recoup health care costs. Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco, parent company of R.J. Reynolds, have met with representatives from eight of the 25 states to discuss a settlement that could be worth $300 billion.

“We’ll be back,” Wilner said as he hurried from the courtroom on Monday. “If we win half our cases, the industry will be bankrupt.”

Melissa F. Ronan, an attorney and a litigation analyst for Wall Street investment firms, said Monday’s verdict is more in line with insider’s predictions that smokers like Connor will win about one in five cases. In that case, she said, well short of going bankrupt, the industry would merely “raise the price of cigarettes.”

Tobacco opponents “wanted to be able to say, ‘We’ve won, and we’re going to win everything from here on out,”’ Ronan said. “Now they can’t.”

Indeed, tobacco executives seemed buoyed by the verdict.

“Through the trial, our faith in the jury system is very much reaffirmed,” said Reynolds senior vice president Daniel Donahue. “It should be reassuring that our American system of justice works.”

Cigarette stocks climbed after the verdict, with RJR Nabisco rising $3.125 to $32.625. Philip Morris jumped $4.25 to $44.125, helping the Dow Jones industrial average to a record close.

While disappointed, Florida officials said they remain undaunted and will push to begin trial, as scheduled, in August.

Florida’s case is considered among the strongest in the nation because it is founded on a 1994 law that strips cigarette makers of most legal defenses, including the argument that smokers are partly responsible for their illnesses.

“The Connor case shows why it is so difficult for individuals to take tobacco to court and win,” said Gov. Lawton Chiles. “But regardless of the Jacksonville jury decision, the state of Florida is playing in a completely different league.”

Raulerson was less convinced. She had promised her sister that she would see the case completed, but acknowledged on Monday that the pledge may have backfired by giving tobacco new hope.

“I have met that commitment, but there is a part of me that feels like I let her down,” she said. “When the murderer gets away with murder, they are laughing all the way to the bank. They know, for today, that they can sell another pack of cigarettes.”