Tobacco.org

How To Testify At Your Own Wrongful Death Trial at Age 49 

If you smoke in the latter half of the 20th Century, you'll have a good chance at "being there" for your posthumous day in court at the beginning of the 21st Century. Pay close attention, now. Be sure to keep good records along the way, just to be sure that you'll have enough evidence to go to court in the first place. It's going to be a hurdle obtaining decades-old records. So get those empty folders ready. Be certain to request certified records from your health care providers every now and then, and always question them about the exact date of your diagnosis. Courts can be very finiky about lapses of time. Any your attorney will be "hog-tied" and unable to proceed on your behalf, if there's no available documented evidence.

That's what Big Tobacco should have told their consumers right from day one. But Big Tobacco was too busy cooking up the decades of deception that produced unsuspecting candidates, like Jean Connor, for posthumous testimony.

Jean Connor was a consummate chain smoker, the first witness to testify at her wrongful death trial. She testified in an hour-long videotaped testimony in 1997. That was two years after Jean had died at age 49 of lung cancer. And Lance Burton wasn't even present in the courtroom to wave a magic wand to make it all happen. Jean became hooked on cigarettes sometime in 1960 at the age of 14, and she never looked back.

(At trial, Big Tobacco's attorneys got to do something that Jean couldn't do, watch her video. . . .

At age 49, Jean had lost her battle to live, and in 1997 Jean's estate had lost at trial, but it seems clear that in the future...

There ought to be a penalty.

Jump to full article »

• Second trial might trim man's $2.2 million award 

A $2.2 million award to a cancer victim who smoked cigarettes with asbestos filters might be reduced depending on the outcome of a new trial.

In April 1999, a Baltimore jury awarded more than $2 million to Charles M.P. Connor who was diagnosed with mesothelioma, which is specifically linked to asbestos. Connor received the diagnosis in 1997, more than 35 years after he had stopped smoking.

Connor smoked Kent cigarettes, whose "Micronite" filters used to include asbestos, ostensibly to rid the cigarettes of the poisons of nicotine. The verdict was handed down against the manufacturer of the cigarettes, Lorillard Inc., and Hollingsworth & Vose Co., which made the special filters. . .

But the verdict was appealed, and in a ruling made public yesterday, the Court of Special Appeals said a second trial should be held to determine whether the mesothelioma developed before or after July 1, 1986. The date is important because compensatory damages may not exceed $350,000 in any personal-injury case in which the cause of action arises on or after July 1, 1986.

If a jury finds that Connor developed cancer after July 1, 1986, then the award amount has to be reduced under Maryland law, said Mike Edmonds, who works for the law offices of Peter T. Nicholl and represented Connor during the trial.

Jump to full article »

$2.2 million verdict to smoker of cigarettes with asbestos filters 

Charles Connor, 75, of Baltimore County, sued after he was diagnosed in June 1997 with mesothelioma, a cancer linked to asbestos. He had smoked a pack of Kents a day for eight years before quitting about 37 years ago.

A jury on Thursday returned the verdict against Lorillard Inc., maker of Kents, and Hollingsworth & Vose Co., which made the ''Micronite'' filters used in the cigarettes.

Lawyers for the companies said they would appeal. The companies have won nine of the 11 other lawsuits that have been tried. . . The lawsuit alleged an elaborate cover-up by the companies to hide the dangers of the filters. Studies in 1954 about whether asbestos was leaking into the smoke have disappeared, the lawsuit stated.

Jump to full article »