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• Mississippi court rules against widow in tobacco lawsuit appeal 

The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a jury's rejection of a $102 million wrongful death suit against a tobacco company.

The lawsuit was filed by Kay Nunnally, whose husband, a longtime smoker, died of lung cancer. A DeSoto County jury ruled for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in 2000.

Nunnally, of Southaven, had claimed 37-year-old Joseph Lee Nunnally developed cancer in 1987 after smoking cigarettes from the time he was a child. . . .

In her appeal, Kay Nunnally argued that the jury ignored evidence she presented about the risks of cigarettes and smoking, including the warnings that are required by law to be on advertisements and packaging.

Presiding Justice Jim Smith, writing in the court's 6-1 decision, said Reynolds put on evidence that it did research to provide the safest, most consumer-desirable cigarette possible. . . .

Justice Chuck Easley, in the lone dissent, said the Frank Statement was important to the case.

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