Carter v. Williamson(8/96) Do cigarette smokers choose to light up despite the risks, or are they addicted and powerless to stop? Grady Carter, a 65-year-old former air traffic controller, smoked for about 44 years. He started as a teenager and did not stop until he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1991. Carter and his wife sued the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. for $1.5 million damages. They claimed the company was liable because it did not warn consumers about the dangers of smoking. Carter claimed Brown & Williamson knew of the dangers of tobacco -- its connection to cancer and its addictive quality -- as early as 1939. Carter's lawyers tried to show that American Tobacco, the makers of Lucky Strikes cigarettes, knew in the 1950s that smoking caused lung cancer and did nothing to inform the public. Brown & Williamson owns American Tobacco. The key to the plaintiff's case was the introduction of some of the so-called Brown & Williamson documents. It was the first time that the documents had been presented to a jury. Plaintiffs in tobacco litigation across the country claim these internal documents prove that Brown & Williamson executives knew more than 30 years ago that nicotine is addictive and conspired to hide the information from the government and the public. In a key document from July 17, 1963, the chief legal counsel for Brown & Williamson wrote: "Nicotine is addictive" and "we are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug effective in the release of stress mechanisms." Carter also claimed Lucky Strikes were defectively manufactured in that they caused cancer and that the tobacco company knew how to make a safer cigarette and chose not to. Brown & Williamson's position was that people have a personal responsibility to choose whether to smoke or not, and that the company could not be blamed for Carter's health problems. The company presented evidence suggesting Carter knew smoking was harmful but, at the same time, it insisted that the link between smoking and cancer had not been proved. The company also claimed it adequately warned consumers about the hazards of smoking on its cigarettes packages. Labels warning of the dangers of smoking went on cigaratte packages in 1966, and those warnings were strenghened in 1970. As a result, federal law protects cigarette manufacturers from being held liable for any alleged failure after 1970 to warn smokers of tobacco's hazards. The defense also insisted there is no alternative design available for making cigarettes. Under a traditional product defective design theory, the plaintiff had to prove that there is a defect in a product's design, that the defect could have been eliminated by an different design, and that the defect caused the plaintiff's injuries. Verdict On August 9, 1996, a Jacksonville, Florida, jury found Brown & Williamson liable and awarded $750,000 to the Carters. The verdict was only the second time that a cigarette manufacturer had been ordered to pay damages in a liability case. In 1988, the family of a New Jersey woman, Rose Cipollone, was awarded $400,000. But the award was overtuned on appeal. To read key tobacco litigation documents, visit the Court TV Library.