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NEW ORLEANS (AP) - In a blow to the tobacco industry, the Louisiana Supreme Court on Friday ordered a plan for a class-action trial that will focus on whether cigarette makers conspired to keep smokers hooked.
The court rejected the industry's request to include testimony on the actions of individual smokers. The plaintiffs had argued that doing so would threaten the lawsuit's class-action status.
Instead of individual damages, the plaintiffs are seeking money from cigarette companies for medical monitoring of Louisiana smokers and for programs to help them quit.
The court said the trial's first phase would concentrate on issues including the alleged marketing of cigarettes to children, the alleged manipulation of nicotine levels, manufacturing a dangerous product and whether the industry engaged in fraud and conspiracy.
The court gave no indication of when the trial might start.
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U.S. tobacco companies lost a bid to start anew in picking a jury in New Orleans to decide whether the industry must pay to monitor the health of Louisiana smokers and help them quit.
The Louisiana Supreme Court rejected the companies' claim that a flawed process might leave them with a biased jury. In a one-page ruling, the high court denied the motion for a new hearing on the matter.
Philip Morris Cos., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. and other tobacco companies claimed trial Judge Richard Ganucheau forced them to use all their jurors challenges on people the judge should have disqualified himself. Nine of 12 jurors must agree on a verdict in the case. . .
Nine alternate jurors still remain to be selected, and that process is expected to take two weeks beginning Monday.
Preparations for the on-again, off-again trial of a statewide class-action lawsuit against the nation's biggest tobacco companies will begin again Monday morning, when attorneys and the judge in the Civil District Court case start picking replacements for nine alternate jurors.
The Louisiana Supreme Court this week cleared the way to rebuild the panel of alternate jurors but refused the companies' request that a whole new set of jurors and alternates be chosen to replace those seated this summer. The high court last month ordered Judge Richard Ganucheau to replace four jurors and five alternates after concluding they were biased, which is why nine new alternate jurors are needed now.
The process of choosing the alternates will begin Monday with questioning of 52 people who filled out surveys for possible jury service but were not called to court for interviews this summer. If a larger pool is needed to come up with nine alternates, 200 more prospective jurors will be summoned.
Philip Morris Cos. and other U.S. tobacco companies asked Louisiana's highest court to throw out the entire jury in a lawsuit by Louisiana smokers who want health checkups.
The Supreme Court of Louisiana last month threw out three jurors and four alternates who the tobacco companies claimed were biased. Another appellate court threw out two others, leaving 12 jurors and one alternate.
The tobacco companies now want to throw out those as well, claiming trial Judge Richard Ganucheau should have excused a number of jurors on his own. The tobacco companies said they had to use all their jury challenges on potential jurors the judge should have dismissed.
``Simply removing biased jurors is insufficient to remedy the harm caused by the district court's numerous errors,'' the companies said in Tuesday's filing. The errors ``made it impossible for defendants to develop and implement a coherent plan for selecting a jury,'' the companies said.
The companies asked state's top court to declare a mistrial and begin jury selection again.
``We believe it is a fundamental issue of unfairness,'' said Seth Moskowitz, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. ``The only way to fully remedy it is to start anew.''
Tobacco companies have asked Louisiana's highest appeals court to throw out the entire jury picked for class-action lawsuit aimed at making the companies pay to monitor the health of current and former smokers.
The companies' appeal to the state Supreme Court says the judge in the pending statewide trial made so many mistakes in picking a jury last summer that the only fair remedy is to declare a mistrial and start over. . .
The tobacco companies contend their right to a fair trial was violated by the way Ganucheau handled attempts to challenge the qualifications of other jurors whose relatives would qualify for the medical monitoring called for in the lawsuit.
There is no proof that people who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for five years and then quit are at a statistically significant, higher risk of developing lung cancer, but a health expert who testified against the tobacco industry Wednesday said he believes that's when the risk begins.
Few scientific studies have ever looked at short-term smokers, and the ones that have analyzed long-term smokers found "biologically meaningful" risk after 20 pack years, said Dr. David Burns, a professor of pulmonary medicine at the University of California-San Diego. . .
Burns is an important witness in the class-action lawsuit that some 250,000 West Virginia smokers have filed against R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, Lorillard and Brown and Williamson. He helped develop the proposed medical monitoring program the lawsuit seeks for symptom-free smokers who have at least a five pack-year history. . .
When initially questioned, Burns said a five pack-year history -- or the consumption of 36,500 cigarettes -- is enough to qualify as significant exposure to a known hazardous substance. That's among the half-dozen points the smokers must prove to prevail.
"The more you smoke, the more likely you are -- other things being equal -- to develop lung cancer," Burns said.
However, under cross-examination that will continue Thursday, Burns conceded that no studies have been published to define where a smoker's risk of developing lung cancer actually begins. A few were conducted, he said, but the results were inconclusive. . .
R.J. Reynolds attorney Jeff Furr painted Burns as a longtime industry foe with both a financial and political agenda.
The state Supreme Court ordered the removal of three jurors and four alternate jurors from the panel that will decide a major class-action lawsuit against tobacco companies.
The lawsuit alleges that the tobacco industry manipulated nicotine levels to keep smokers hooked.
Tuesday's decision was at once a partial victory and a setback for the tobacco companies, who had argued that 12 jurors and alternates were too biased to decide the case because they had relatives who smoke or have smoked.
Those parents, spouses or siblings could qualify for industry-paid quit-smoking programs and medical monitoring if the smokers win the case.
But most of the seven Supreme Court judges hearing the case sided largely with plaintiff lawyers who said the issue was whether those jurors could make a fair decision, regardless of whether their relatives would benefit.
"We are convinced there is no legislative or jurisprudential support for defendants' position that all jurors with family members who are potential class members must be excluded from the jury," the unsigned majority opinion said. . .
Tuesday's decision, along with an earlier appeal court ruling tossing off other jurors, means four remaining alternate jurors will join the jury panel and more alternates will have to be selected before opening arguments can begin. . .
In the unsigned plurality opinion issued Tuesday, the court assessed the ability of each of the 12 to make a fair decision. For instance, the court noted that Juror No. 1 had told the court he once asked his mother and brother if they wanted to quit smoking, that he himself had once smoked and that he was unsure whether he would consider participating in a quit-smoking program.
His overall responses indicated he could be influenced by the availability of such programs and should have been thrown off the jury, the court said.
On the other hand, Juror No. 2, whose father was a former smoker, gave answers indicating she had not formed opinions that would affect her impartiality, the court said. . .
The suit is expected to take up to a year to try.
The Louisiana Supreme Court on Tuesday told the judge in a pending class action lawsuit against three of the nation's big tobacco companies to replace four jurors and five alternates, saying the verdict could be swayed by their desire for close relatives to get free medical tests.
There was no immediate word about when Civil District Court Judge Richard Ganucheau would pick new jurors. Five of the court's seven justices agreed the trial could not proceed without new jurors; two of the justices said even more jurors and alternates should have been stricken from the case. . .
The justices said Ganucheau erred by not dismissing three of 12 jurors and four of 10 alternates who, despite claiming they could be fair, indicated they would like to see their immediate relatives get help to stop smoking and annual health testing or gave other reasons to believe those relationships might affect their verdict. The court instructed Ganucheau to replace not only those jurors and alternates, but also the juror and alternate the appeals court said should not have been seated.
The Supreme Court told Ganucheau to shift four existing alternates to the jury. After dismissing the five alternates, that leaves only one person on the original slate of alternates. The judge then must hold hearings to pick nine new alternate jurors, building that panel back up to ten, the court said.
The number of separate opinions emerging from the court Tuesday, six, illustrated sharp disagreement among the justices. . .
Associate Justice Jeffrey Victory and Jeannette Theriot Knoll concurred, but in strongly worded dissents they decried the practice of allowing people to serve as jurors in cases affecting their relatives. They would have struck all jurors and alternates with immediate family members who are potential members of the class, including four additional jurors and one more alternate.
When you look at the parameters of the class, every citizen in Louisiana, including judges, are potential members of the class, as virtually everyone is connected in some fashion to a smoker or former smoker.Louisiana Supreme Court Associate Justice Bernette Johnson, in her dissent from the majority's decision which forces the Scott case judge to replace four jurors and five alternates. The court decided the verdict could be swayed by their desire for close relatives to get free medical tests. Finch, S.
Whether published remarks by a Boston attorney for the plaintiffs in a statewide class-action lawsuit against the nation's largest tobacco companies justify scuttling the trial before it begins was one of the debates at a Monday hearing in Orleans Parish Civil District Court.
Philip Morris attorney Phil Wittmann told Civil District Judge Richard Ganucheau that Northeastern University School of Law professor Richard Daynard's comments in a Sept. 4 story in The Times-Picayune were prejudicial to the defense and violated the judge's August order barring both sides from speaking with reporters.
Daynard heads his law school's Tobacco Products Liability Project, which encourages lawsuits against tobacco companies as a public health strategy.
The gag order, which tobacco companies say is unconstitutional, is among several issues pending. The trial, which was to start Sept. 5, has been put on hold while various courts consider them.
The Louisiana Supreme Court is still reviewing whether to order Ganucheau to pick new jurors in the case
Judges in West Virginia and Louisiana delayed lawsuits that seek to force U.S. tobacco companies to pay for regular health check-ups for smokers.
A judge in Wheeling, West Virginia, postponed a class-action trial against Philip Morris Cos., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. and other cigarette makers until Monday at the lawyers' request. In New Orleans, the Louisiana Supreme Court postponed arguments, scheduled for today, on whether some jurors were properly removed from a similar tobacco lawsuit in that state. [This graph only]
The state Supreme Court will hear arguments next week in a jury selection battle that delayed trial in a class-action lawsuit against the tobacco industry.
Trial was to have begun this past Wednesday in a lawsuit alleging that the tobacco industry manipulated nicotine levels to keep smokers hooked. However, the day before the trial, a state appeal court tossed off a juror and an alternate.
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeal in New Orleans said the two disqualified jurors should not have been seated because they indicated bias against the tobacco industry.
The people who filed the lawsuit appealed that decision to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Meanwhile, defense lawyers for the tobacco companies asked the high court to remove the entire panel and declare a mistrial.
The defense said several prospective jurors had immediate family members who are prospective members of the class represented by the suit's plaintiffs.
The Louisiana Supreme Court will hold a hearing Wednesday on whether the jury in the upcoming trial of a statewide class-action lawsuit against the nation's big tobacco companies should include people whose close relatives are healthy smokers or former smokers.
The question was brought to the high court this week by attorneys for Big Tobacco.
They claim it would be unfair for the case to be decided by individuals whose parents, siblings, spouses or children could qualify for the relief the suit seeks: programs to help them stop smoking and annual testing to detect lung cancer, bladder cancer, heart disease and emphysema.
A six-month-to-yearlong trial of the case before Civil District Judge Richard Ganucheau was to have begun Wednesday but was postponed after three judges of the state 4th Circuit Court of Appeal told Ganucheau to replace one juror and one alternate juror it said were biased against the tobacco companies.
Two other 4th Circuit judges who considered the matter agreed those two jurors should be removed but said Ganucheau should replace all 13 jurors and alternate jurors whose immediate relatives could be part of the plaintiffs' class.
The tobacco companies have asked the Supreme Court to require Ganucheau to come up with a completely new set of jurors and alternate jurors.
Jurors will hear opening statements Monday in a lawsuit aimed at forcing the tobacco industry to provide free, annual medical monitoring to healthy West Virginia smokers.
The pool of potential jurors was whittled to 19 Thursday afternoon, and lawyers were making their final cuts late in the day to get a panel of six with four alternates, Ohio County Circuit Clerk Brenda Miller said.
Jurors will have a day off Friday and begin hearing what could be months of testimony at 8:30 a.m. Monday.
A state appeals court ruled Tuesday that a juror and an alternate juror must be replaced in the trial of a lawsuit that claims tobacco companies manipulated nicotine levels in cigarettes to keep Louisiana smokers addicted.
It was not immediately clear how the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal ruling will affect Civil District Court Judge Richard Ganucheau's intention to have attorneys give their opening statements today in a case expected to take six months to a year to complete.
Meanwhile, the tobacco firms, who had asked the 4th Circuit to order selection of a whole new set of 12 jurors and eight alternate jurors, could take their request to the Louisiana Supreme Court. . .
Earlier Tuesday, Ganucheau heard arguments on several defense motions but made no immediate decisions on any of them.
One was a request by the tobacco companies for Ganucheau to lift his Aug. 13 order forbidding lawyers and parties in the case from talking to the news media.
The tobacco attorneys contend that the gag order would prevent their clients from answering claims voiced by anti-tobacco forces outside the trial. But the plaintiffs' lawyers argued it will stop those involved in the case from making out-of-court statements that might influence the jury.
Another request, this one from Philip Morris, asked Ganucheau to forbid any reference in the trial to a controversial study commissioned this summer by the company's Czech affiliate.
Tuesday the Louisiana 4th Circuit Court of Appeal ordered two jurors to be replaced on grounds that they are related to people who could benefit if the plaintiffs won their case.
State Civil District Court Judge Richard Ganucheau said the trial will be in recess until Monday Sept. 10, when attorneys for both sides will begin selecting two new jurors.
Meanwhile the Louisiana Supreme Court is considering a broader challenge by tobacco company attorneys to the impartiality of jurors, which could lead to further delays.
Ganucheau said on Wednesday he had been ``a little overwhelmed'' by a ``blizzard'' of pretrial motions filed by defense attorneys this week.
``At some point, this has to stop and we have to start calling witnesses,'' he said.