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• Brown & Williamson Faces Individual Texas Smoker Suit (Update1) 

A jury will soon hear claims that Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. should be held responsible for the 1986 death of a long-time Texas smoker.

Lawyers began choosing a jury this week in state court in Beaumont, Texas, where the family of deceased smoker Wiley Grinnell seeks to hold Brown & Williamson, a unit of U.K.-based British American Tobacco Plc., responsible for his death. Opening statements are expected to begin early next week.

As the first known individual suit against the tobacco industry to go to trial in Texas, the Grinnell case could serve as a warning of how the industry will fare in the state's courts, said David Crump, a University of Houston law professor. . .

While cigarette makers have consistently told juries that the smokers should be held responsible for their own actions, Edward Sweda, a senior attorney at the Tobacco Products Liability Project, an anti-smoking group at Northeastern University's School of Law, said the tobacco industry needs to take responsibility for their own actions as well.

``This is about whether the plaintiffs will be successful getting the jury's attention (to) what was happening at the time (Grinnell) started smoking,'' Sweda said.

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