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Legislative leaders said Wednesday they might be open to modifying the state's tough new anti-smoking law, but warned that disgruntled bar and restaurant owners should not expect sweeping changes.
Anti-smoking groups, though, say any modifications would gut the law, scheduled to take effect July 24. Bar owners, joined by tobacco companies, vowed an all-out effort to turn back the measure, which outlaws smoking in nearly all public places.
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Tobacco company lawyers had presented evidence that Anderson, 57, could have contracted cancer from exposure to toxic substances through his work as a bathtub refinisher and in other jobs.
Even so, the conclusion that smoking was a non-factor in Anderson's illness was described by an industry spokesman as an "improbable" basis for victory, and by Martin Feldman, a tobacco analyst with Salomon Smith Barney, as a "remarkable decision."
It appeared "the jury accepted the defense contention that bathtub refinishing is more likely a cause of lung cancer than 30 years of smoking Salems," said Mark Gottlieb, a staff attorney with the Tobacco Products Liability Project, a Boston-based support group for lawyers who sue the industry.
Stuart Finz, one of Anderson's lawyers, called the verdict "shocking . . . in view of the overwhelming proof that 33 years of cigarette smoking indeed caused Mr. Anderson's lung cancer." He said the case will be appealed.
[It appeared] the jury accepted the defense contention that bathtub refinishing is more likely a cause of lung cancer than 30 years of smoking Salems.Mark Gottlieb, a staff attorney with the Tobacco Products Liability Project, on the ANDERSON verdict. LEVIN, M., <I>Tobacco Firms Win Round in N.Y. Court</I>
``The jury's verdict is vivid proof that our central defenses to smoking cases remain strong, that juries recognize the overriding issue of personal responsibility and the freedom to make one's own lifestyle choices,'' said William S. Ohlemeyer, Philip Morris vice president and associate general counsel.
At the same time, Ohlemeyer said the jury heard evidence of an industry and a Philip Morris that no longer exists, saying the company has forever changed.
Lennie Forrest had big dreams, a record deal and a voice that Cash Box magazine compared to Al Jolson's. Leonard Finz had a law degree, a wife and plans to start a family. . .
Now 75, Finz is again at center stage, applying his dramatic and vocal skills in a Brooklyn courtroom on behalf of a cancer- stricken smoker in the first tobacco liability case tried in New York. A jury may get to judge his performance sometime today. . .
In the trial now winding down in Brooklyn, Finz is representing 57-year-old Clyde Anderson . . .
During his closing argument Tuesday, Finz, ever the showman, may have deliberately provoked an objection from opposing counsel Stephen Kaczynski, who represents R.J. Reynolds Holdings Inc., by violating Kramer's order not to refer to the tobacco companies collectively as ``Goliath.''
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc.'s attorney told a Brooklyn, New York jury to disregard an ex-smoker's testimony that he knew nothing about the connection between cigarettes and lung cancer in the 1960s.
After seven weeks of testimony, Reynolds attorney Stephen Kaczynski began closing arguments in the trial today. He described as ``truly amazing and beyond belief'' plaintiff Clyde Anderson's claim that he ``didn't know nothing about lung cancer in the 1960s.''
``Use your God-given common sense,'' Kaczynski urged the jury. . .
Anderson could have quit smoking much earlier than 1993, Kaczynski said. He pointed to an instance in which Anderson said he tried to quit in 1966, after the first warning labels appeared on cigarette packages. Citing the plaintiff's admission that he didn't throw his cigarettes away but kept them in a drawer, Kaczynski said ``that was not a sincere attempt.''
Arguments in the latest suit open this week in a Brooklyn, New York, state courtroom, where the tobacco companies will try to convince a jury that plaintiff Clyde Anderson's emphysema and cancer do not entitle him and his wife to damages. . .
``There has never been a (tobacco) case litigated in New York,'' said David Adelman, an analyst with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. ``All of these cases are important.''
State Supreme Court Justice Herbert Kramer will begin two days of jury selection in the first trial of a smokers' damage claims against the tobacco industry to take place in New York State.
On Wednesday morning opening statements are expected in the case of Clyde Anderson, a 56-year-old laborer with lung cancer, against five cigarette makers and two industry-sponsored associations.
The two chief protagonists in the courtroom battle in Anderson v. Fortune Brands Inc. 42821/97, which could last as long as three months, will be a former State Supreme Court justice who has successfully fought the pharmaceutical industry, and a Cleveland-based partner of one of the nation's largest law firms who has spent the better part of his career defending the tobacco industry.
Both men — former Queens Justice Leonard L. Finz, for Mr. Anderson and Stephen Kaczynski of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue for the lead defendant, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. — were ready to rumble as the trial approached last week.
We've seen this collection of documents and experts before. It's the same story regardless of the plaintiff. We've just come from a trial in California where the plaintiff was a white woman. Here the plaintiff is a black man. It's the exact same story — a story in a box.Stephen Kaczynski of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue for RJR. New York's Anderson trial gets under way this week. WISE, D., <I>First Tobacco Trial in State Begins</I>