Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 19:56:35 -0700

Jury awards ex-smoker millions in tobacco case

ASSOCIATED PRESS

March 28, 2000

SAN FRANCISCO -- A jury ordered the nation's two largest tobacco companies yesterday to pay $20 million in punitive damages to a dying ex-smoker who took up the habit after the surgeon general's warning began appearing on cigarette packs in the 1960s.

The Superior Court jury decided 9-3 to order Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds to pay $10 million each to Leslie Whiteley and her husband.

The same jury awarded the couple $1.7 million in compensatory damages last week after finding that the companies deceived the public about the dangers of smoking.

That verdict represented the first time the industry lost to a smoker who took up the habit after 1969, when tobacco companies began putting government-required health warnings on cigarette packs.

Around the country, juries have awarded damages to individual smokers five other times. But three of those verdicts were overturned, and two others are under appeal. The industry has yet to pay anything in any of those cases.

Whiteley, 40, said she started smoking in 1972 at age 13. She smoked Philip Morris' Marlboros and Reynolds' Camels until 1998, when she quit shortly before doctors diagnosed small-cell lung cancer. Doctors said she will probably die this year.

Philip Morris lawyer William Ohlemeyer contended that punitive damages are improper because "the companies have made profound changes in the way they do business." He and other company lawyers have pointed to the $206 billion settlement reached in 1998 by cigarette makers and 46 states suing over health costs.

He said the companies will appeal if the judge upholds the verdict.