Jury in La. orders tobacco firms to pay

Tobacco lawyers said they would immediately appeal, and the case could drag on for years in the courts before Big Tobacco spends any money on the programs. The next and final phase of the trial will determine how the programs will run, but that portion cannot begin until appeals of yesterday's ruling are complete.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said they expected a drawn-out battle during the appeal, but said the verdict still represented an important victory for smokers.

"For the first time ever in this country, a jury has awarded a comprehensive smoking-cessation program, not dollar damages," lawyer Joseph Bruno said. "Instead, the jury approved what is needed to help those addicted to smoking."

The verdict covers hundreds of thousands of Louisiana residents who smoked before the mid-1990s, when the suit was filed. None of the smokers in the lawsuit can get individual damages.

Lawyers for the smokers in the class-action lawsuit had wanted $1 billion for smoking-cessation programs, an amount tobacco lawyers called excessive. They said two to three years of programs, at up to $9 million a year, would give smokers time to get counseling and try various aids to quit smoking.

The lawsuit also wanted the programs to last up to 25 years, but jurors set them at 10 years.

The verdict was reached in the second phase of a lengthy trial.

In July, the same jury found that cigarette makers had deceived the public with an addictive product and had schemed to market cigarettes to children. The jury rejected calls for medical monitoring for current and former smokers, but said the industry should provide free smoking-cessation programs.

The current phase was to determine how much the industry should spend on the programs and what those programs should be. The third phase, to determine how the programs will work, will be held without the jury.

The case is one of several lawsuits filed against tobacco companies in recent years. In 1998, the industry tobacco agreed to pay 46 states, including Louisiana, $206 billion over 25 years to settle lawsuits for smoking-related health care claims. That settlement did not preclude individuals from suing tobacco companies.

R.J. Reynolds attorney Phillip A. Wittmann said he would argue in an appeal that the Louisiana case should have been halted before yesterday's ruling.

"This case was certified as a class action to answer one question, whether cigarettes and nicotine are defective products," Wittmann said. When jurors found that they were not defective, the case should have stopped there, he said.