Widdick v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.
"The Tobacco Conspiracy Trial"
The latest civil suit against the tobacco industry finds the family of a long-time smoker suing cigarette maker the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., alleging that there was an industry-wide conspiracy to manipulate and withhold scientific evidence about the dangers of smoking.
Angela Widdick is representing the estate of her late father, Roland Maddox in this suit against the tobacco company. She claims that Brown & Williamson (manufacturers of Lucky Strikes cigarettes) conspired to hide the health risks of smoking tobacco from consumers, the government, and various physicians in order to continue making a profit off their dangerous products. And, the suit alleges, even though the tobacco company knew about its products' health risks, Brown & Williamson continued to market its cigarettes irresponsibly, specifically targeting teen-agers. Widdick's father was only 16-years-old when he began smoking Chesterfields cigarettes (made by Liggett) in 1946.
Widdick claims that Brown & Williamson knew about the dangers of smoking even back then and were negligent for not informing her father and others like her father. She hold the companies responsible for her father's cancer-related death in 1997 and reportedly plans to help prove her case by using the newly-released, incriminating internal documents from Brown & Williamson that surfaced in the Bliley Congressional hearing and Brown & Williamson's recently settled tobacco liability trial in Minnesota.
Reportedly, the defendant has denied ever participating in a conspiracy to hide the health risks of their products from others. They maintain that Maddox was ultimately responsible for his death by choosing freely to smoke for as long as he did.
50 Years of Smoking...and Conspiracy
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In 1996, 50 years after he began smoking, Roland Maddox was diagnosed with lung cancer, which had also spread to his liver by that time. Since his teens, Maddox had smoked approximately two packs a day every day. He regularly smoked two brands of cigarettes: first Chesterfields and then starting in 1950, Lucky Strike.
Maddox tried to quit smoking in the 1970s and then again approximately eight years before his death. He experienced the common symptoms of nicotine withdrawal -- increased stress and an inability to concentrate. Around 1995 and 1996, Maddox succeeded in reducing his cigarette consumption from two packs to one pack a day. His nicotine consumption had gone down to two or three cigarettes a day before he finally quit the habit shortly after his diagnosis.
Maddox's health deteriorated quickly, despite chemotherapy treatments. He died in May 1997, less than one year after being diagnosed. Maddox was survived by his wife of 46 years, Margaret, his three children (Angela, Peggy, and Betty), and nine grandchildren.
According to Widdick's suit, Brown & Williamson knew that its products were addictive and caused severe health problems such as cancer, lung disease, and genetic damage. The plaintiffs also claim that the tobacco companies knew that prolonged smoking, especially begun at an early age, would increase the likelihood of harm to consumers. Maddox reportedly suffered smoking-related injuries such as lung cancer, emphysema, airway obstruction, cellular and cardiovascular damage. Maddox's family blames the tobacco companies for his illnesses and subsequent death, claiming that they never warned him about the health risks of prolonged smoking. Furthermore, the plaintiffs claim, the tobacco company knew about risks of smoking and chose to hide this information from consumers, government officials, and other authorities so that they could continue making profits. And, the plaintiffs say, they plan to prove this conspiracy by using Brown & Williamson's own internal memos and documents against the company.
These documents, plaintiff lawyers say, prove that cigarette makers manipulated scientific research on smoking and lied to consumers about the dangers of smoking. The suit also alleges that the tobacco companies paid for misleading scientific research to discredit the findings of independent researchers studying the effects of tobacco. Cigarette makers also are accused of creating an "illusion that a medical and scientific 'controversy' existed" about the risks of smoking and of trying to protect each other from the scrutiny of the medical community.
Part of this "illusion," the plaintiffs claim, included the tobacco companies executing an allegedly misleading public relations campaign to cover up the unfavorable findings of their tobacco research; holding various secret meetings; and the formation of the Tobacco Institute, an organization the plaintiffs say was established to provide misinformation to the media and others on the dangers of cigarette use.
The Secret Tobacco Documents
In 1994, thousands of pages of confidential Brown & Williamson documents surfaced and caused a stir in the tobacco industry. The documents revealed that the tobacco company's officials knew about the dangers of smoking decades ago but continued to publicly maintain ignorance over the issue. Tobacco opponents frequently quote a July 17, 1963 report by then Brown & Williamson general counsel/vice president Addison Yeaman, which started partly, "Moreover, nicotine is addictive. We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug effective in the release of stress mechanisms."
But in 1994, Thomas Sandefur, the CEO of Brown & Williamson, testified before Congress and said, "I do not believe nicotine is addictive...Nicotine is very important constituent in the cigarette smoke for taste."
This year, during the State of Minnesota's civil suit against the tobacco industry, a judge ordered the release of 39,000 documents from various cigarette manufacturers that may further incriminate tobacco companies as a whole. The plaintiffs are expected to use some of these documents to prove their conspiracy allegations against Brown & Williamson.
Liggett Group, Inc. was a defendant in this case just before trial. But an agreement was reached with the company in the days leading up to the trial. (Liggett had recently committed to cooperate with various plaintiffs and investigators around the country with tobacco investigations.)
The family of Roland Maddox seeks actual and punitive damages from Brown and Williamson under three theories of liability: negligence, conspiracy, and strict products liability. The plaintiffs concede that Maddox may have been partially at fault for his death. But they believe the defendant must be held at least partially responsible for Maddox's death.
The Verdict
After almost two days of deliberations, a jury found that the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company was liable in the death of late smoker Roland Maddox's death and that the tobacco company was part of an industry-wide conspiracy to defraud the public and Maddox about the dangers of smoking.
The Maddox family was awarded $52,249 in medical expenses; the jury also awarded Mrs. Maddox $500,000 in compensatory damages to the widow for her loss of companionship and the earnings of her husband. And most importantly, the jury found that Brown & Williamson must pay the Maddox family $450,000 in punitive damages for their loss.
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