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Tobacco trial may turn tide
66
If tobacco loses this one, they could lose a
lot more. ”
Melissa F. Ronan
attorney with LititgationAnalysis for Wall Street
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) —
Jean Connor, who smoked two to three
packs of cigarettes a day for more than
30 years and died of lung cancer in
1995, told her story from the grave.
In a videotape played for a jury, an
ailing, bone-thin Connor told how, as
a teen-ager, she thought smoking was
glamorous.
“They tell me that Salem’s a good
cigarette. That I should smoke it. That
I’ll enjoy it. I’ll like it, and it’s pleas
ant, and good things happen to you
when you smoke Salem,” she said.
Her family’s effort to hold R.J.
Reynolds Tobacco Co. liable for her
death comes as the legal and regula
tory tide has turned against the indus
try. A verdict against the nation’s No.
2 cigarette maker could weaken the
industry’s hand in negotiations toward
a multibillion-dollar settlement with
state governments around the coun
try.
“If tobacco loses this one, they
could lose a lot more,” said Melissa F.
Ronan, an attorney with Litigation
Analysis for Wall Street, who has at
tended the entire month-long trial.
Connor’s legal team is led by
Norwood “Woody” Wilner, who won
a $750,000 verdict against Brown &
Williamson last fall on behalf of an
other former smoker. It was only the
second time a jury has ordered the in
dustry to pay. The first verdict, in 1988
in New Jersey, was overturned on ap
peal.
In the latest trial, which is expected most of it was too prejudicial. During
to go to the jury on Friday, Wilner and
RJR’s lawyers argued whether the
company was negligent in not warn
ing of the dangers of smoking.
The case is a test of the use of RJR
internal documents, which Wilner in
troduced for the first time to show that
the company was aware of links be
tween smoking and lung cancer in the
1940s and early ’50s.
Connor’s family says she became
hooked on cigarettes. She died in 1995
at age 49. They are seeking millions
in damages.
RJR’s attorneys argue that Connor
chose to smoke and was not addicted
because she was able to quit in 1993,
two months before she was diagnosed
with cancer.
In the videotapes, a dying Connor,
looking gaunt and wearing a wig,
talked about seeing cigarette ads as a
teen-ager in the 1950s.
v The jury saw only 1 1/2 minutes
of the 16-minute videotape because
Circuit Judge Bernard Nachman ruled
a hearing on the tape’s admissibility,
Nachman at one point told lawyers to
stop the video because the images of
Connor were too disturbing to him.
Connor said she started smoking
one or two cigarettes a day when she
was 14 or 15. At the time there were
no health warnings on cigarettes.
Connor first smoked Winston ciga
rettes, then switched to Salems be
cause she liked the menthol taste. Both
are made by R.J. Reynolds.
Taken alone, the trial is not that
significant to the tobacco companies,
which had $50 billion in revenue last
year.
But the trial comes as the industry
faces lawsuits by more than 20 states
and countless individuals and increas
ing regulatory pressure. A federal
judge in Greensboro, N.C., ruled last
week that the Food and Drug Admin
istration could regulate tobacco as a
drug. And the Supreme Court this
week refused to hear a challenge of a
Baltimore ordinance restricting ciga
rette billboards near schools.
NATO agreement remains elusive
MOSCOW (AP) — President
Boris Yeltsin urged the Clinton ad
ministration Thursday to give “con
crete meaning” to pledges by the
United States and NATO not to
threaten Russia with its planned ex
pansion to Russia’s western border.
The administration signaled back
that room for bargaining remains be
fore July, when President Clinton and
leaders of the 15 other NATO coun
tries will meet and invite former al
lies of Russia to join the alliance.
Much of the negotiating until then
will be in the European ministate and
NATO member Luxembourg, where
Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny
Primakov and NATO Secretary Gen
eral Javier Solana meet next week; and
in neutral Austria’s capital Vienna.
Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright, true to her prediction, was
unable in talks with Primakov on
Thursday to close the gaps on a char
ter to give Russia a link to but no mili
tary voice in the Atlantic alliance.
Witness details McVeigh’s exploits
DENVER (AP) — A former arms dealer
testified Thursday that Timothy McVeigh called
him six months before the Oklahoma City
bombing and asked to buy a detonator for a
bomb, making it clear “he needed it bad.”
“He asked me if I could get him a detona
tion cord ... a high explosive used to set off the
main explosive,” said Greg Pfaff, who met
McVeigh at gun shows through his ammuni
tions outlet, Lock and Load Distributors.
Pfaff said he told McVeigh that a “det cord”
is not normally sold at gun shows and could
not legally be shipped in the United States.
McVeigh, who was calling from Arizona, said
he would personally pick it up.
“He said it didn’t matter, he needed it bad,”
said Pfaff, who was never able to come up with
the detonation cord.
Pfaff, who now runs a deli in Harrisonburg,
Va., said McVeigh was strongly opposed to the
government siege on the Branch Davidian com
pound near Waco, Texas. “Basically that this
could be the start of the government coming
house to house to retrieve the weapons from
the citizens,” he said.
Later, David Qarlak, a high school friend
of McVeigh’s from upstate New York, testified
he hadn’t heard from McVeigh in two years
when he called in 1994 asking where he could
buy some racing fuel.
Darlak said he didn’t know, and asked
McVeigh why he needed it. Darlak didn’t elabo
rate on McVeigh’s response.
Prosecutors say nitromethane fuel, often
used in drag racing, was mixed with ammo
nium nitrate fertilizer to make the truck bomb
that blew apart the Oklahoma City federal
building.
McVeigh, a 29-year-old Gulf War veteran,
faces the death penalty if convicted of murder
and conspiracy in the April 19,1995, blast that
killed 168 people and injured more than 500.
At the trial, a publisher of military how-to
books also testified that McVeigh ordered three
books in 1992 and 1993, including one —
“Homemade C-4, A Recipe For Survival” —
that details how to mix ammonium nitrate and
nitromethane.
t\ jt TQuestions? Comments? Ask for the
O n appropriate section editor at 472
i\6DiaSKall A 2588 or e-mail dn9unlinfo.unl.edu.
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