IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: Tobacco under attack

June 28, 1999
Web posted at: 2:23 p.m. EDT (1823 GMT)

MIAMI (CNN) -- A civil jury deliberated seven hours Monday before adjourning without a liability verdict in a landmark multibillion-dollar class-action lawsuit against several tobacco companies.

The jury of two women and four men ended the day without asking any questions of the court. Deliberations resume at 9:30 a.m. ET Tuesday.

It was the first class action civil lawsuit brought directly by smokers against the tobacco industry to go to trial in the United States.

The jurors have to decide whether the nation's five biggest cigarette makers and two industry groups are responsible for illnesses smokers claim they suffered because they couldn't quit smoking.

The smokers say the tobacco industry made a defective product and conspired to deceive the public and government about smoking-related illnesses.

The industry contends smokers should have known the risks of smoking and are responsible for their own decision to light up. Tobacco officials also deny allegations they purposely made cigarettes more addictive.

Deliberations began after 50 minutes of final instructions from Dade County Circuit Judge Robert Kaye, who has imposed a gag order barring lawyers and parties from talking about the case.

The lawsuit was filed in 1994, a jury was chosen last July and opening statements began on October 19. Since then the trial has dragged on, interrupted by holidays, long weekends and illness as well as legal challenges and arguments over motions.

Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt are representing a small number of plaintiffs on behalf of an estimated half-million sick Florida smokers.

In 1997, the Rosenblatts won a $349 million settlement for flight attendants in a secondhand-smoke case against the same defendants.

They hope to collect as much as $200 billion in this case.

The defendants are Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown and Williamson, the Liggett Group, Lorillard Tobacco Company, the Council for Tobacco Research and the Tobacco Institute.

In his closing statement, Philip Morris' lead counsel Robert Heim told jurors "the case was about choice. I said it was about people's choice ...to continue to smoke and I said it was about responsibility."

Heim said warnings mandated by Congress have been on cigarettes since 1966.

He told jurors 50 million people have been able to quit smoking and that smokers must take responsibility for their actions.

The trial is in three phases.

If jurors find the tobacco industry liable, the panel would return to decide compensatory and eventually, punitive damages on each individual smoker's claim.

The jury's verdict form is 12 pages long.

During nearly a week of closing arguments, tobacco lawyers twice moved for a mistrial, claiming the Rosenblatts made inflammatory comments that prejudiced the jury.

Kaye has said he would rule on those motions after the verdict.

Correspondent Susan Candiotti, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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