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Local counsel for RJR, Michael Ulmer, of the Jackson, Miss., firm Watkins & Eager, said DeSoto County jurors accepted his client's argument that individuals are responsible for their choices and assume the risk when they engage in dangerous behavior.
Jack F. Dunbar, an attorney in Oxford, Miss., said DeSoto County is known as a conservative venue. "They're very, very tough jurors" for plaintiffs, he said. . .
Because Mr. Nunnally died before the suit was filed, defense lawyers never had an opportunity to learn when he began smoking Reynolds brands or what, if anything, RJR did to induce him to smoke. As a result, plaintiffs were allowed to present only minimal evidence about alleged company wrongdoing and nothing about its alleged efforts to target young smokers, said plaintiffs attorney Charles Merkel, of the Clarksdale, Miss., firm Merkel & Cocke.
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Joseph Nunnally began smoking sometime between the ages of eight and 10, just a couple of years before health warnings started appearing on packages. He died in 1989 at age 37.
``It would have been more of a surprise if the industry had lost this case rather than having won it,'' Martin Feldman, tobacco analyst with Salomon Smith Barney, said after the verdict was announced. ``The industry has generally done well within the heartland of America.''
``It really is a good bellwether test on the issue of personal responsibility, in terms of smokers willingly taking and knowingly taking the risk when they smoke,'' Sanford C. Bernstein analyst William Pecoriello said.
A Hernando, Miss., jury today returned a verdict in favor of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJRT) in the Nunnally case, a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the widow of a smoker. The verdict follows a similar decision by a Brooklyn, N.Y., jury in June. . .
``This jury agreed that this case boiled down to two simple issues,'' said Michael W. Ulmer, lead RJRT counsel for the Nunnally case. ``First, the plaintiff did not offer any evidence that the cigarettes Mr. Nunnally smoked were in any way defective. They offered nothing to the jury to support the notion that there was any feasible, safer alternative cigarette design that would have been used by Mr. Nunnally and that would have prevented his cancer.
``Second, the jurors understood that smokers, including Mr. Nunnally, have long been aware of the well-known and inherent risks of smoking, and that people who choose to smoke in the face of these known risks should not be financially rewarded.''
First, the plaintiff did not offer any evidence that the cigarettes Mr. Nunnally smoked were in any way defective. They offered nothing to the jury to support the notion that there was any feasible, safer alternative cigarette design that would have been used by Mr. Nunnally and that would have prevented his cancer. Michael W. Ulmer, lead RJRT counsel for the Nunnally case. <I>R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company Pleased with Nunnally Verdict</I>
In an effort to shorten the trial, lawyers for both sides agreed to a number of stipulations that will be presented as facts for the jury to consider.
The stipulations include: warnings on cigarette packages since 1966; a statement that nicotine is naturally occurring; that Nunnally's parents smoked; that R. J. Reynolds legally sold cigarettes in Mississippi, and that no alternative cigarette design would have reduced the risk to Joe Nunnally's health as much as quitting smoking would have.
In testimony Monday, Dr. Thomas L. Bennett, a forensic pathologist and former Mississippi medical examiner, testified the large tumor was more likely a sarcoma than a carcinoma.
Sarcomas are not thought to be related to smoking . . .
Bennett, who has testified in two previous tobacco cases and served as a consultant in two more, said he receives $150 an hour for reviewing documents and $250 an hour for his testimony.
Dr. George Seiden, a Shreveport, La., psychiatrist, said he had performed a "psychological autopsy" on Joe Nunnally by reading depositions given by family members, friends and Nunnally's associates, including his fifth-grade teacher.
Seiden said the Nunnally case was the 10th or 12th tobacco case he's testified in, always for tobacco companies.
He said he receives $250 an hour to review documents and $350 an hour for his testimony. . . He discounted nicotine as an addictive drug, contending that nicotine leaves the body after 10 hours without smoking.
There's a lot of evidence from the fifth grade forward that [Nunnally] was aware of the dangers [of smoking].RJR witness Dr. George Seiden, a Shreveport, La., psychiatrist, who said he had performed a "psychological autopsy" on Joe Nunnally. Bayne, W., <I>Tobacco Trial May Go To Jury Today</I>
Joseph Lee Nunnally is partly to blame for becoming hooked on cigarettes as "a foolish 8-year-old child," but so is the company that makes the deadly products that caused his death, said the attorney for Nunnally's widow.
Opening arguments began Thursday in Kay Nunnally's wrongful death lawsuit against tobacco company R.J. Reynolds. . .
Kay Nunnally's attorney, Charles Merkel of Clarksdale, said R.J. Reynolds is liable for marketing an addictive product that company officials knew would kill consumers. . .
"This is a case about choice. About a choice made by an 8-year-old child, and a choice made by adults sitting in offices, thinking, planning, trying to make profits."
Jury selection is expected to begin today in Hernando in an 8-year-old wrongful death lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
Kay T. Nunnally filed suit in 1992 over the 1989 death of her husband, Joseph Lee Nunnally.
Jurors are expected to hear testimony from relatives and acquaintances that he started smoking between the ages of 8 and 10 and smoked for 27 years, said Charles Merkel of Clarksdale, one of the attorneys representing Kay Nunnally.
His wife decided to sue the tobacco company she blames for her husband's death.
But Kay Nunnally, a soccer mom who works at Southaven Supply Co., says she's not looking to get rich.
"I'm just trying to make things right,'' she said. "I never looked at this as a lottery ticket.
Jury selection begins Friday at the DeSoto County Courthouse in Hernando in her lawsuit against the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. It is the first such wrongful death suit to reach trial in DeSoto.
A lawsuit accusing R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. of selling a harmful product is set to go to trial in Hernando in June after a nearly eight-year delay.
Kay T. Nunnally filed a complaint in 1992 against the tobacco company and Basic Foods Inc., which sells cigarettes.
Joseph Lee Nunnally died in 1989 after a short battle with lung cancer. He was 37 and the father of four children.
The trial is scheduled for June 26 at the DeSoto County Courthouse.