Family loses tobacco lawsuit

By Telegram.com

A jury returned a defendant’s verdict yesterday afternoon in a wrongful death and product liability case brought against Philip Morris Inc. by the family of a Douglas man who died of lung cancer in 2000, after decades of smoking.

After hearing nearly three weeks worth of evidence and deliberating over portions of three days, a Worcester Superior Court jury found that the Marlboro cigarettes Stephen C. Haglund of Douglas smoked before his death at age 51 were not defectively designed and unreasonably dangerous, as Mr. Haglund’s family alleged in their civil lawsuit against the tobacco company.

The plaintiffs alleged that when Mr. Haglund began smoking in the 1970s, Philip Morris could have employed technology that extracted addictive nicotine from cigarettes and provided a safer alternative to their product.

In his opening statement in the case, Paul F. Ware Jr., a lawyer for Philip Morris, said the technology, known as solvent extraction, did not remove all nicotine from cigarettes, and more importantly, did not remove any of the carcinogens.

Mr. Ware said Philip Morris spent large sums of money over the years developing and promoting various brands of low-nicotine cigarettes, but that they were all commercial failures. He maintained that nicotine is “essential to what a real cigarette is.”

The suit was filed in 2001 by Mr. Haglund’s widow, Brenda L. Haglund, and two of their children, Stephen M. Haglund and Melissa J. Robledo, co-administrators of their late father’s estate.

“I respect the jury’s verdict,” Mrs. Haglund said when asked for comment.

“We think there are appellate issues that are going to be reviewed, and there will be more to come,” said Michael D. Weisman, one of the Haglunds’ lawyers.

“These are always difficult cases for a family that has sustained a loss as significant as the Haglund family, and we certainly wish them all of the best,” Mr. Ware said.

Yesterday’s verdict marked the second defense verdict for Philip Morris this month, following a May 16 jury’s decision in favor of the company in a federal court in New York, Philip Morris USA said in a press release yesterday.

“We believe that the jury appropriately found that Marlboro cigarettes were not defectively designed and unreasonably dangerous,” said Murray Garnick, Altria Client Services senior vice president and associate general counsel, speaking on behalf of Philip Morris USA.

Altria is the parent company of Philip Morris.

“The jury correctly rejected the plaintiffs’ theory that the company should have sold only virtually nicotine-free cigarettes,” Mr. Garnick said.

Filed in 2001, the plaintiffs’ sole claim in this case was that PM USA breached an implied warranty of merchantability in failing to market only virtually nicotine-free cigarettes, the press release states.

“The plaintiffs had stipulated that the decedent was fully aware of the risks of cigarette addiction and lung cancer from smoking cigarettes and that the proposed virtually nicotine-free cigarette would be unacceptable to a vast majority of smokers,” it said.