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The Brown & Williamson tobacco company plans on suing Walter Jacobson for libel today and hopes to win a verdict against Jacobson in time for him to read it on the air when he returns to Channel 2 Newsthey'reverywhere tomorrow night.
Jacobson will be teamed with Bill Kurtis on CBS2 tomorrow night for one-night only because the current anchor, Rob Johnson, will have the night off. The move reunites the legendary Chicago news team and is the brainchild of news director Jeff Kiernan.
In conjunction with the stunt, Brown & Williamson will reprise its famous lawsuit against Jacobson which resulted in one of the most bizarre moments in Chicago TV news history when Jacobson as a news anchor delivered the lead story one night about himself. The story was that he had been beaten in a mult-million-dollar lawsuit. The announcement of the story was even more bizarre than the fact that someone could actually lose a libel suit to a tobacco company.
"It was like losing a defamation suit to Hitler,"
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A groundbreaking tobacco case flamed out last week when a jury awarded the children of a now-deceased smoker $1.5 million -- $20.5 million less than a previous verdict overturned on appeal.
"The jury apparently felt that R.J. Reynolds didn't need to be deterred," said a disappointed Greg Leyh, an attorney for the children.
In February 2005, a Jackson County jury awarded the family of Barbara Smith $2 million in compensatory damages (which was later reduced to $500,000 because Smith was determined to be 75 percent at fault) and $20 million in punitive damages -- the largest punitive award ever in a Missouri smoking case.
The verdict was against Brown & Williamson, which was later acquired by Reynolds. Brown & Williamson made Kool cigarettes, which Smith smoked for nearly 50 years. She died of a heart attack in May 2000 at the age of 73.
Brown & Williamson appealed the verdict, and the Missouri Court of Appeals in Kansas City two years ago ordered the case retried on the issue of punitive damages only. The court ruled that evidence of Brown & Williamson's wrongful conduct was sufficient to submit to a jury. . . .
The jury two weeks ago found that Brown & Williamson knowingly sold a dangerous and defective product. It then proceeded to a second phase to determine punitive damages.
McClain asked jurors to award $110 million "to send a message." That amount represented about a quarter of the $442 million in dividends Brown & Williamson received from its parent company last year and about the same amount Reynolds' top five executives made in the last five years.
The jury, however, came back with $1.5 million, a fraction of what McClain sought. Leyh said that he spoke to two of the jurors after the trial and got the sense "that since Brown & Williamson doesn't make cigarettes anymore, they didn't feel there was a need to deter them."
Both sides said they plan to appeal.
Laurence Alan Tisch (born March 5, 1923, died November 15, 2003) was a Jewish American businessman, Wall Street investor and self-made billionaire. He was the CEO of CBS television network from 1986 to 1995. With his brother Bob Tisch, he was part owner of the Loews Corporation.
Tisch was widely criticized for his mismanagement of the CBS network and his involvement in the Brown and Williamson scandal (later portrayed in the film The Insider). Many journalistic veterans at CBS News, including Walter Cronkite, accused Tisch of degrading journalistic standards in pursuit of higher profits. Critics have pointed out that Tisch's efforts to prevent the Brown and Williamson story from appearing on 60 Minutes were likely driven by the financial windfall he stood to receive from the company's 1995 sale to Westinghouse Electric Corporation (and his unwillingness to jeopardize the sale, which ultimately netted him $2 billion), as well as the fact that Tisch's Loews Corporation owned a major tobacco company, Lorillard Tobacco.
Dr. Jeffrey S. Wigand (b. December 17, 1942) hired onto Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation on January 1, 1989, as Vice President of Research and Development. Having spent 17 years of his life employed in the health care field, it is extremely odd that this doctor would associate his occupation with that of a habit known to affect the single most preventable cause of death in the United States. In the infamous 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace dated February 4, 1996, Wigand, by no means perfect, admits to having been attracted to B&W's lucrative annual salary ($300,000), along with benefits that would greatly assist his eldest daughter, then suffering from acute asthma.
A secondary reason for Wigand's hiring was an alleged mutual interest on the part of both parties to develop a "safe cigarette:"
Wigand: They were looking to reduce the hazards within cigarettes, reduce the carcinogenic components or the list of the carcinogens that were within the tobacco products.
INDEPENDENCE * Jury selection was scheduled to begin Monday for a new trial on the $20 million awarded from a tobacco company to an Independence man whose wife died of heart disease.
A Jackson County jury in 2005 awarded Lincoln Smith $20 million in punitive damages from Brown & Williamson for the 2000 death of his wife, Barbara. The company is now part of North Carolina-based Reynolds American Inc.
The Missouri appeals court sent the case back for a new trial on the punitive damages after finding that of three claims made, only one had been submissible.
O'CONNOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined, post, p. 161. . . .
(c) The history of tobacco-specific legislation also demonstrates that Congress has spoken directly to the FDA's authority to regulate tobacco products. Since 1965, Congress has enacted six separate statutes addressing the problem of tobacco use and human health. Those statutes, among other things, require that health warnings appear on all packaging and in all print and outdoor advertisements . . .
it is evident that Congress has ratified the FDA's previous, long-held position that it lacks jurisdiction to regulate tobacco products as customarily marketed. Congress has created a distinct scheme for addressing the subject, and that scheme excludes any role for FDA regulation.
[Page 192]
nothing more than an intent not to change the jurisdictional status quo.
The upshot is that the Court today holds that a regulatory statute aimed at unsafe drugs and devices does not authorize regulation of a drug (nicotine) and a device (a cigarette) that the Court itself finds unsafe. Far more than most, this particular drug and device risks the life-threatening harms that administrative regulation seeks to rectify. The majority's conclusion is counterintuitive. And, for the reasons set forth, I believe that the law does not require it.
Consequently, I dissent.
Description:Appeal of litigation for proposed "safer cigarette" alternative.
NY Court of Appeals in Albany.
Proceedings (Click on Type for more details)
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Type Start Date End Date Court Status Sessions
Oral Argument 2008-11-18 2008-11-18 NY - New York State Court of Appeals Concluded (Non Trial) 1
Brad Burmaster recalls the day two RJ Reynolds sales reps visited the construction site of his new store, Light House, in suburban Chicago. The hardwood floor was in; the shelves were being delivered. Displays appeared as elaborate mini-stores for Camel, Winston, Doral - all RJR brands.
Their eyes fairly popped out as the reps asked, "How did a little Mom & Pop tobacco store get the company to do all this?"
Burmaster laughed. "I may look like a Mom & Pop, but I've got a $4 billion company behind me," he told the reps, and introduced himself as vp-new business and retail development for Clark Marketing & Refining.
Soon enough, the Mom & Pops - and bars next door - will have the $70 billion tobacco industry behind them as marketing restrictions drive tobacco promotions into adult-only venues.
Light House is the brainchild of Glen Ellyn, IL-based Clark, whose 800 gas station/convenience stores make it an important outlet for tobacco . . .
Philip Morris will tie its current Party at the Marlboro Ranch sweepstakes into Bar Nights, with instant winners picked from consumers who enter in the bar that night.
Of course we are conscious, as everyone must be, of the irony in speaking of cigarettes' "utility." A strong argument can be made that, when the pleasure they give smokers is balanced against the harm they do, regular cigarettes are worse than useless. But it is still lawful for people to buy and smoke regular cigarettes, and for cigarette companies to sell them. To hold, as plaintiffs ask, that every sale of regular cigarettes exposes the manufacturer to tort liability would amount to a judicial ban on the product. If regular cigarettes are to be banned, that should be done by legislative bodies, not by courts.
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, with costs.
I respectfully dissent. Plaintiffs met their burden of establishing that defendants were able to design a safer cigarette that maintained the functionality of a regular cigarette (see Voss v Black & Decker Mfg. Co., 59 NY2d 102, 109 [1983]). The majority concludes, however, that plaintiffs were required "to prove that smokers find light cigarettes as satisfying as regular cigarettes," and were further obligated to prove that cigarettes serve some function other than to provide pleasure (maj op at 3). In my view, this language improperly shifts the burden of proving consumer acceptability to plaintiffs.
At trial, defendants moved "to offer evidence tending to prove that the 'safer alternative design' suggested by plaintiffs was not feasible because it was not acceptable to consumers (i.e., not commercially viable)" (10 Misc3d 680, 696-697). The trial court denied that motion, concluding that evidence of commercial viability of the lighter cigarette was irrelevant to its feasibility or functionality (id. at 699).
That was error and, therefore, I would remit the matter to Supreme Court for a new trial to permit defendants the opportunity to present proof of the alleged commercial unacceptability of the lighter cigarette as compared to the regular cigarette.
The Missouri Court of Appeals on Tuesday re-adopted its decision in a landmark tobacco case after the Missouri Supreme Court returned the case to the appeals court in July.
In August 2007, the appeals court found evidence of intentional wrongdoing by tobacco company Brown & Williamson but ordered the case retried on the issue of punitive damages.
The case was brought by the family of Barbara Smith, who had smoked Kool cigarettes for nearly 50 years and died of a heart attack in May 2000 at the age of 73.
In February 2005, a Jackson County jury awarded the family $2 million in compensatory damages, which was later reduced to $500,000, and $20 million in punitive damages -- the largest punitive award in a Missouri smoking case.
No tobacco company's balance sheet is ever replete without a mention of legal expenses incurred by it.
..... Ever wondered why tobacco companies continue to dole out millions or billions in legal settlements year after year? Here's why.
The tobacco industry is faced by a barrage of lawsuits related to product liability and advertisements concealing the health risks of cigarette smoking. Smokers in the U.S. did not know the dangers of smoking until the 1950s when results of a study linking smoking to cancers and cardiovascular diseases were published.
The first U.S. lawsuit against a tobacco company was filed in 1954. . . .
In 1994, the litigation landscape of tobacco industry changed dramatically like never before in the U.S. That year, several states led by Mississippi initiated court cases against tobacco companies to recover health care costs associated with smoking.
Diane Castano, whose husband died of lung cancer and three others, sued . . .
The Department of Health (DoH) is to roll out an initiative that aims to recruit smokers to local NHS Stop Smoking Services.
The COI has appointed Carlson Marketing to handle a ‘Getting off cigarettes' campaign, spanning face-to-face activity, press, radio, outdoor, door drops and advertising bikes to target smokers trying to quit. The activity will target a range of venues, from shopping centres and bus depots to workplaces.
A tobacco company's attorney told the Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday that the firm shouldn't have to pay $20 million in damages to the husband of a Kansas City-area woman who smoked for decades.
Many claims in Lincoln Smith's lawsuit against Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. were the same as ones a judge previously rejected in an unsuccessful lawsuit filed by his wife, Barbara, before she died, attorney Andrew McGaan said.
Both suits accused Brown & Williamson of causing the woman's respiratory and heart diseases and failing to warn about smoking dangers.
Barbara Smith, who smoked Kool cigarettes for about 50 years, died from a heart attack in 2000.
Case Media
* Oral Argument
* Opinion Announcement
* Written Opinion
Abstract
Oral Argument: Wednesday, December 1, 1999
Decision: Tuesday, March 21, 2000
Issues: Economic Activity, Consumer Protection
Advocates
Richard M. Cooper (Argued the cause for respondents) Seth P. Waxman (on behalf of the Petitioners)