Tobacco Victory in Oakland Lawsuit

After being pummeled by West Coast juries in six straight cases, Big Tobacco won one Tuesday when a federal judge in Oakland absolved Philip Morris Cos. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. of responsibility for the death of a longtime smoker.

The victory came in a directed verdict by U.S. District Judge Saundra B. Armstrong shortly before jury deliberations were to start in a case brought by the family of Frank R. White, who died at 81 after a lifetime of smoking.

In entering a judgment for the companies, Armstrong ruled that the jury had no basis to find them liable based on the evidence presented.

White, who began smoking at age 14, suffered from heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at the time of his death in 1999. Lawyers for White’s family blamed his death on the companies’ failure to design safer cigarettes and their failure to provide adequate warnings of the risks of smoking.

But the suit had weaknesses, including the fact that White lived into his 80s and avoided lung cancer -- the disease most clearly linked to tobacco -- despite decades as a smoker.

“Judge Armstrong rightfully ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to show that the company’s products were defectively designed or that Mr. White had not been warned about the risks of smoking,” said Stephen J. Kaczynski, lead counsel for RJR, in a statement issued after the verdict.

“As the plaintiffs presented their case, it became increasingly clear that their claims ... had no merit.”

Said William S. Ohlemeyer, vice president and associate general counsel for Philip Morris: “Obviously, we think it’s the right result.”

Plaintiffs lawyer Perry S. Dobson could not be reached for comment.

For years, courtroom victories by tobacco companies were so unexceptional that they hardly deserved mention. But until Tuesday, plaintiffs had won all the cases tried on the West Coast since 1999.

In the four California and two Oregon cases, juries awarded compensatory and punitive damages to lung cancer victims totaling more than $30 billion. Though trial courts trimmed the largest of the awards, cigarette makers still face damages of $363 million in the cases, all in various stages of appeal.

Philip Morris was named in all six cases and RJR is a defendant in one.

Last week, the Oregon Supreme Court let stand an order that Philip Morris pay $80.3 million to the family of Jesse D. Williams, a former Portland school custodian and longtime Marlboro smoker who died of lung cancer at 67.

It marked the first time a state’s high court had upheld a punitive damages award in a smoking-and-health case. Now an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is the industry’s last hope of avoiding a first-ever payment of punitive damages in the case of a sick smoker.

Richard Daynard, who heads the Boston-based Tobacco Products Liability Project, which promotes litigation against the cigarette industry, said he was not discouraged by Tuesday’s verdict.

“I didn’t think there was any chance at all that this string” of victories “would continue forever,” Daynard said. “I mean, there are bad cases out there as well as good cases, and nobody could ever expect the plaintiffs” to win every case.

Philip Morris stock closed at $40.53, down 86 cents, and RJR closed at $42.11, down 63 cents, both on the New York Stock Exchange.