Tobacco.org

Athlete's challenge heard by judge / Oak Creek player seeks reinstatement 

Lawyers for former Oak Creek High School football player Jamaal Butler went to federal court Friday, seeking to have the star athlete reinstated, a move that, the school argued, would remove any say a school has over the conduct of its student-athletes.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman is expected to rule in the case early next week. . .

said Superintendent John Voorhees: "If we are overturned, athletic codes are essentially non-existent. Kids can do what they feel like, and they don't have to follow rules." . .

Butler was suspended from the Oak Creek football team this fall after the high school said he violated the athletic code five times. . .

The five athletic code violations involved smoking, the finding of marijuana in a pocket of a jacket he was wearing, drinking, intoxication and disorderly conduct. [This graph only]

Jump to full article »

Attorney, judge suing tobacco firm / Phone-record theft denied 

Mississippi Circuit Judge Billy Joe Landrum and trial attorney Cynthia Langston have filed separate lawsuits charging that lawyers for Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. invaded their privacy as part of a conspiracy to have the judge ejected from the case.

The lawsuits allege that tobacco company lawyers conspired with a phone company employee, who also happened to be Ms. Langston's ex-husband, to access the personal and business telephone records of the judge and the plaintiff's lawyer in 1997 as the case moved closer to trial.

Jump to full article »

Any kind of allegation like this, especially if true, makes it very difficult for us as an industry to develop a national dialogue about tobacco.
Steve Parrish, vice president and lawyer at Philip Morris Inc, on the odd doings in Mississippi over the Butler trial. Quoted in <i>Attorney, judge suing tobacco firm / Phone-record theft denied</i>

STREAMING VIDEO: Victory For Tobacco Companies In Butler Case 

Tobacco companies won a major victory yesterday, when a Mississippi jury found that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) did not cause the lung cancer of Burl Butler. During the case, the defendants argued that credible evidence did not exist to show that ETS causes lung cancer. The jury apparently agreed. Watch streaming video which looks at the case at http://www.newstream.com/99-230.shtml

Jump to full article »

Tobacco Firms Accused of Causing Non-Smoker's Death (Update1) 

Industry lawyers countered that Butler's lung cancer could have just as easily been caused by his family's health history, his diet and his long-term exposure to hair spray and talcum powder. ``Talc is contaminated with asbestos,'' said Jeffrey Furr, a Winston-Salem, North Carolina lawyer representing tobacco companies. Asbestos exposure has been found to cause lung cancer in non-smokers, he added.

The industry's expert witnesses found ``not a shred of evidence that environmental tobacco smoke caused Mr. Butler's lung cancer,'' Furr said.

In fact, plaintiffs never produced evidence of which brands were smoked in Butler's shop, said Andrew R. McGaan, a Chicago lawyer representing Brown & Williamson. ``We don't know who smoked what at what time,'' he said.

Jump to full article »