Extended time still not enough for lawyers to track down litigants.
Jump to full article: WVNS-TV CBS 59 (Ghent, WV), 2006-10-19
Author: Juliet A. Terry
Intro: The heirs of an estimated 160 dead smokers will not be able to wage personal injury lawsuits against cigarette manufacturers because they have not responded to lawyers' attempts to contact them.
The nation's largest consolidation of smokers' lawsuits continued its march toward a late spring 2007 trial during a hearing at Ohio County Circuit Court Oct. 16. Judge Arthur M. Recht refused to give plaintiffs' attorneys another extension on the time allotted to locate relatives of plaintiffs who died before they could give their depositions in the case. The plaintiffs are suing cigarette makers for damages, accusing them of manufacturing products that caused their illnesses or deaths.
What started as about 1,100 plaintiffs has been whittled to roughly 800 smokers suing cigarette makers. . . .
"The whole idea, for better or worse, was to try to strike a compromise that hopefully was as fair as could be arranged," he said before denying the motion for another 30-day extension. "... The time period was set for the 18th of September, and I'm going to stick to it. Even to get to that was a compromise."
Another issue tackled during the hearing involved whether Recht would grant summary judgment to the defendants or dismiss the claims of some plaintiffs who may have waited too long to file their lawsuits.
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