Jump to full article: AP, 2006-03-03
Author: Associated Press
Intro: North Carolina cigarette-maker Liggett Group Inc. is not responsible for the death of a Boca Raton woman who smoked the company's unfiltered Chesterfield brand, a jury decided.
Leila Schwartz died in 2002 after smoking for 50 years, according to the lawsuit filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court by her husband, Leonard Schwartz. She was 72.
It took a jury 90 minutes to decide Thursday that Liggett, based in Research Triangle Park, N.C., was not liable.
"I would've been happy to win money ... but more important was for (Liggett) to be liable for their lack of honesty," Schwartz said. . . .
Liggett attorney Aaron Marks argued that Leila Schwartz suffered from numerous illnesses, including depression, high blood pressure and heart disease, and that two heart attacks and a triple bypass surgery caused her death.
Doctors didn't consider a cancerous lung tumor found two months before she died to be terminal, Marks said.
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