Smokers' attorney asks for up to $196 billion

MIAMI - Smokers in a landmark class-action case asked a jury for a record-shattering $196 billion Monday to punish the tobacco industry for ''a half-century trail of deceit which has decimated millions of Americans.''

''Never have so few caused so much harm to so many for so long, and the day of reckoning has arrived,'' attorney Stanley Rosenblatt said as closing arguments began in the two-year trial involving 300,000 to 700,000 sick Florida smokers.

Each side has two days to summarize its case. The industry is expected to begin its argument Tuesday.

The case represents what could be the gravest legal threat ever to the nation's five biggest cigarette makers.

The six-member jury already has decided that the industry makes a deadly product and ordered it to pay $12.7 million in compensatory damages to three representative smokers. Now it must decide how much to award in punitive damages, which are intended to punish and deter misconduct.

The verdict could easily set a U.S. record for punitive damages in a product liability case, surpassing the $4.8 billion against General Motors last year in a California car fire. A judge reduced that to $1.09 billion.

Rosenblatt suggested jurors consider a range of $123 billion to $196 billion. Witnesses for smokers testified the defendants could afford $150 billion to $157 billion.

''This industry has left a half-century trail of deceit which has decimated millions of Americans,'' Rosenblatt said.

Tobacco companies think that figures in the ''billions are just for the Wall Street people, just for the investment banks,'' Rosenblatt told jurors. ''Hopefully, you're going to show them that regular people not engaged in high finance are not intimidated by these numbers at all.''

Tobacco companies have argued they should not be required to pay any more than their combined net worth of $15.3 billion, the difference between assets and liabilities on their balance sheets.

But Circuit Judge Robert Kaye refused to set any limit on damages.

The industry has expressed fear of a ruinous verdict of perhaps $300 billion.

However, Florida law says a punitive-damages verdict cannot put a company out of business, and judges are required to reduce any award that would. Also, some tobacco states - including Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky - have passed laws in recent months intended to shield the industry from the crippling effects of a big verdict.

The case - the first smokers' class-action lawsuit to go to trial - is expected to go to the jury late this week. Any decision will be appealed and could take at least two years to move through Florida's appeals courts.

The industry settled lawsuits with states in 1998 for about $257 billion over the next 25 years. But the settlements do not prevent individuals from suing.

The key tobacco defense is that the industry has changed its ways since states began suing in 1994 and that the settlements are punishment enough.

Rosenblatt disputed that, walking jurors through testimony during the trial from the chiefs for all five tobacco companies.

''Have you really changed or is it all fluff?'' he asked. ''Are you going to have to pay the price for your misconduct?''

Liggett Group Inc. has been at the forefront of the industry's position, saying for three years that cigarettes cause cancer and are addictive. The company turned over thousands of secret industry documents that pushed other companies into the settlements in 1998.

Lorillard Tobacco Co. admitted the health risks of smoking for the first time on the witness stand last month. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. took that position earlier.

Industry-leading Philip Morris Inc. and No. 2 R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. have cited public-health warnings about the risks of smoking but do not say as a matter of company policy that smoking causes disease.

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