VICTORY! ENGLE  TRIAL - MOST  FEARED  BY  TOBACCO  COMPANIES - BROUGHT  AGAINST  THEM  BY SMOKERS 

But, Florida Supreme Court reversed itself in considering the class action lawsuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the tobacco industry appeal to hear the case. 

Please see the Update.

EXCERPTS from The Sun-Sentinel , article by Terri Somers, Nov. 5, 2000
                       The statewide class-action case against Big
                       Tobacco belongs in state court, a federal judge
                       in Miami has ruled.
                          U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro-Benages
                       was to hear arguments Tuesday on whether the
                       case belonged in state or federal court. But on
                       Friday, she called lawyers involved, telling them
                       she had reached a decision. The lawyers
                       received her 14-page order in the mail
                       Saturday.
                          On July 14, a six-member jury awarded $145
                       billion in punitive damages to the statewide
                       class of an estimated 700,000 ailing smokers
                       and the survivors of those who died of
                       cigarette-related illnesses. On the same day,
                       the Southeastern Iron Workers union filed legal
                       papers, saying the union wanted to become a
                       member of the class action and was entitled to
                       a share of any punitive damages.
                          Lawyers for the five tobacco companies
                       involved in the lawsuit said the issue of whether
                       the union can join the lawsuit was a federal
                       one, thereby allowing the case to be moved to
                       federal court.
                          Lawyers representing the smokers, Stanley
                       and Susan Rosenblatt of Miami, denounced the
                       move as "sanctionable and frivolous."
                           They contended it was designed to prevent
                       Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Robert Kaye
                       from entering a final judgment on the verdict.
                          "We were very upset that the ironworkers
                       union filed a motion to intervene," Stanley
                       Rosenblatt said Saturday. "We always believed
                       this was a way for tobacco to remove the case
                       to federal court.  We are happy with the ultimate
                       decision of the judge to remand (to state court).
                       On the other hand, the verdict was entered on
                       July 14, and here it is Nov. 4 and we have lost
                       all this precious time."

The tobacco industry had sought to move their appeal of the decision to federal court.
EXCERPTS from The Associated Press, July 25, writer Catherine Wilson, headlined: Tobacco Case Moves to Federal Court

Tobacco opponents called it a desperate action.
"They get a lot of credit for imagination on this one,'' said Northeastern University law professor Richard Daynard, who has advised smokers' attorneys.

The nation's five biggest cigarette makers automatically switched the case to U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro-Benages with the move. She would consider a 200-page motion also filed Monday to challenge the punitive damage award, the three jury verdicts against tobacco, the trial judge's handling of the case and class certification.

The industry transferred the case based on a motion submitted in state court by the Southeastern Iron Workers health care plan on the day of the verdict July 14. The union argued some of its members were covered by the lawsuit and it should be allowed to join the case.

"As a result of the union motion, there were new federal issues injected into the case,'' said Mike York, an attorney for industry-leading Philip Morris.

Smokers' attorney Stanley Rosenblatt was expected to file a motion with Ungaro-Benages to send the case back to Florida Circuit Judge Robert Kaye, the trial judge.

"In the normal course of events this would be tossed back with a nasty comment from the bench by the federal judge, but when the tobacco companies are involved sometimes weird things happen,'' said Daynard.

A grateful nation should offer thanks to this courageous, patient jury, whose members heard two years of testimony on the subject, and who offered three decisions.

The lead photo from ABC News 20/20, shows Rita Zemlock, GASP of Florida in the background, in the courtroom following the jury's verdict.  Rita attended many of the court sessions, and has reported on these in the organization's newsletters.  Many thanks to Rita Zemlock!

What a shame the nation's media could not have been reporting on the issues in this trial, and the evidence presented, over the entire two year period.  The reporters on 20/20 missed the point of the trial, and the intense moral victory here.  By not reporting on this trial regularly over the last two years, the nation's media has fallen into the trap of the tobacco industry, which is most upset by truth, by having people see tobacco executives and tobacco attorneys and tobacco analysts as the deceitful, lying, greedy drug pushers they are, quite willing to continue marketing a product that will addict and kill most of their consumers.  To use the "gag order" as an excuse is ridiculous.  Many in the Florida media were able to attend the trial, and their reports could have been utilized, or ABC, NBC, CBS, and others could have sent people there to report regularly on this historic trial.

Maybe it is time to have full disclosure from the media, to let the public know who owns what, and who sits on what corporate boards.  For example, Philip Morris has on its board two CEOs of major media corporations - RupertMurdoch (Chairman, The News Corp.- publishing, movies, television) and Richard D. Parsons (Pres., Time Warner).

No one should forget the victims of tobacco, who paid the ultimate price for using a product that is addictive and lethal when used as intended, a product that tobacco companies knew would addict and kill consumers. It was the Brown & Williamson CEO who sat in the courtroom with his bodyguard.  No consumers had a bodyguard to protect them from tobacco executives.

                      The jurors who leveled the largest-ever U.S.
                      damage award against Philip Morris Cos. and four
                     others didn't trust testimony from the tobacco
                     companies about how much they could afford to pay
                     plaintiffs, a juror said.

                      John Mestre, a 48-year old telephone service
                     technician, said the jury might have believed
                     testimony from companies' chief financial officers
                     rather than the testimony of their chief executives.

                      "They brought nobody to bring the real figures,"
                     Mestre, the only member of the jury who smoked,
                     said.  "Based on their track record, we couldn't
                     believe anything they said. They weren't forthcoming
                     with the real value of the companies.''

                      On Friday, the six jurors deliberated less than five
                      hours before deciding the tobacco companies
                      should pay Florida smokers $145 billion.

                      "We wanted them to know they weren't just going to
                      get a slap on the wrist,'' Mestre, a father of two,
                      said.  "They did some bad things.''

                      The court began picking the jury in July 1998, and
                      opening statements in the first phase of the trial
                      began the following October. The jury found in July
                      1999 that the tobacco industry was liable for making
                       a deadly product.

                      After he was picked as a juror, Mestre said he told
                     himself he would quit smoking when the trial ended.
                     A long-time Marlboro smoker, he finally gave up
                      on that timeline as the trial ended up taking years,
                     not the months he had expected. He quit buying
                     cigarettes last month on his birthday, though he said
                      he will still take some from his wife.

                      "It's the only product that when used for the use
                      intended, will knock your socks off,'' he said.

                      Before dismissing the jurors, Judge Robert Kaye
                     praised the jury for giving up a good portion of their
                      lives for the past two years to serve on this panel.

                      "You, as jurors, have added to our history,'' Kaye
                      told the panel.  "You added so much to the history
                      of jurisprudence and the history of this country.''

                      Kaye presented the jury, which had also awarded
                     $12.7 million in compensatory damages to three
                     named plaintiffs, with a certificate of
                     service  for their two years of service.

                      "Some day, you'll hang it on the wall and look at it
                     and say, 'Gee, I did serve,''' Kaye told the jurors.

                      "It was an experience where I garnered a (lot) of
                     information,'' Mestre said.  "I just don't know what to
                     do with it.''

For more than a week, a six-member jury in a Miami courtroom heard the song of the new cigarette industry.

One by one, the chief executives of Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds and other major tobacco companies appeared before the jury to tell how they had turned over a new leaf. They had agreed to pay $246 billion to states to fight teenage smoking and help pay for the ills of injured smokers.

Some executives told jurors of their efforts to develop less
dangerous cigarettes. And, they said, the need to punish their
companies with punitive damages was past.

The Miami jury, when it reached its verdict on Friday, seemed to
respond as if it had not heard a word of the executives' testimony
or, perhaps worse, as if the industry's arguments had infuriated the jurors more. After five hours of deliberations, they meted out a stunning $144.8 billion punitive award to members of a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of all Florida residents made sick by smoking.

The jury foreman confirmed those sentiments on Saturday. "To minimize the deaths of so many people," exclaimed Leighton A. Finegan. "We have seen the deaths of 400,000 people a year for 50 years. And they stand up in court and say that if we give a huge verdict it's a death warrant for the companies."

The failure of the tobacco industry's arguments in the Miami case
could haunt it in future lawsuits or spur it toward an overall
settlement. But even if cigarette makers succeed in getting the award sharply reduced, as many experts expect, or thrown out, the staggering size of the damage figure stunned some legal experts and sounded alarm bells.

But others said the tobacco industry had only itself to blame for the verdict, given its decades-long fight against regulation.

"This jury's verdict is probably a reflection of frustration at the
failure of other branches of government to hold this industry
accountable," said Matthew Myers, the president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in Washington.

The Miami jury's award is likely to be hotly debated by legal experts and others for months. But in many ways, its size also reflected the unique nature of the Florida case and how it proceeded.

For one, a class-action case against the cigarette industry had never previously gone to trial. And the jury heard the case in segments.   Last year, for example, it found that cigarette producers had conspired to mislead the public about the dangers of smoking.

In April, based on that decision, it awarded a record $12.7 million
in compensatory damages, or those intended to cover medical costs and pain, to three smokers chosen to represent the class.

Those findings set the stage for the latest part of the trial in
which the jury was asked to decide punitive damages, or those
intended to punish a company for its conduct, on behalf of the entire class, a group estimated at 300,000 to 700,000 people.

The potential for a huge damage award had not been lost on the
cigarette makers. In May, they succeeded in getting a bill passed by the Florida Legislature limiting to $100 million the amount of money that a defendant had to post to appeal a verdict in a Florida state case. Previously, defendants had to post the entire amount of an award.

The companies, along with state officials, had argued that posting a bond to cover huge punitive damages in the case could both bankrupt cigarette makers and jeopardize the $246 billion in payments they are paying states as a result of lawsuit settlements with the industry.

Even with the potential for immediate financial disaster apparently averted, the stakes were still high as the punitive damages phase of the trial unfolded. And as it did, tobacco producers rolled out an argument against punitive damages that they had been refining over the past year.

Simply put, it was that the industry had repented. Not only is it
paying the states billions, it no longer sends its top executives to
Congress to argue that smoking is not addictive and does not cause cancer. It is open. It is honest. It is different.

The message did not play with the jurors.

Clark Freshman, an associate professor at the University of Miami Law School, said he believed that cigarette producers might have undercut themselves when they testified that they could not afford to pay substantial damages.

"That probably made the jury disregard all their arguments," Mr. Freshman said.

Mr. Finegan, the jury foreman, agreed. "I felt a great sense of
relief that what we did was right and justified, according to the
evidence presented," he said.

Robert Rabin, a law professor at Stanford University, also said he believed the jury turned a deaf ear to the industry, a sign that
could spell trouble for the industry as it faces punitive damages in
other cases.

"They shifted course and it didn't help them," Mr. Rabin said.

Tobacco industry lawyers like Mr. Little of Philip Morris said they
believed the structure of the trial was so unfair and the jury's
verdict so absurd that the entire case will be thrown out on appeal.

And while other class-action lawsuits are looming, Mr. Little said he believed that they would never get to trial because class-action lawsuits are a flawed legal vehicle for resolving smokers' claims.

For their part, antismoking advocates offered differing views. While some expressed concern that the cigarette industry could use the size of the award to cast itself in the role of legal whipping boy, others, like Dr. David Kessler, the former head of the federal Food and Drug Administration, saw it differently.

Dr. Kessler, now the dean of Yale Medical School, said that no matter what spin the industry or antismoking advocates put on the award, the message of the jury was clear.

"The jury award is less important for the money or whether any group of smokers will see any of the damages," Dr. Kessler said, "than it is for the future of the industry."

Two men standing in a cemetery, one is holding a newspaper headlined, "Lung cancer fatalities" while the other, a tobacco representative, says, "If we lose a multi-billion dollar lawsuit we could go under."

Minnesota was one of the first states to sue the tobacco industry. Attorneys here amassed millions of documents that exposed secrets about the industry's marketing strategy and knowledge executives had about tobacco's addictiveness.

Humphrey thinks the Minnesota documents cleared the way for verdicts like that in the class-action case brought by Florida smokers.

"There's no doubt that our opening up the truth so to speak has had a phenomenal impact not only here but currently pending around the world, frankly,'' he said.
 

Tobacco Product Liability Project
July 14, 2000

Contact:  Richard A. Daynard
Edward L. Sweda, Jr. or
Mark A. Gottlieb
617-373-2026

  TPLP:  ENGLE VERDICT UNLIKELY TO BE REVERSED ON APPEAL

             Repudiating the tobacco industry’s long history of fraud and deception, a Miami
jury today delivered an historic verdict, awarding plaintiffs in the Engle case a record
$144 billion in punitive damages.  Richard A. Daynard, Chairman of the Tobacco
Products Liability Project at Northeastern University School of Law and a professor of
law there, called the jury’s verdict “an affirmation of the millions of lives of Americans
devastated by the tobacco industry’s outrageous and illegal conduct over the past half
century.”

             Prof. Daynard also commended the jury for holding each of the major tobacco
companies financially accountable for their long history of misconduct.  The breakdown
by company is as follows: $73.9 billion to be paid by Philip Morris, Inc.; $36.2 billion by
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.; $17.5 billion by Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co.; $16.2
billion by Lorillard Tobacco Co.; and $790 million by Liggett Group.

             Throughout the course of this lengthy trial, pro-tobacco stock analysts have
downplayed the importance of the Engle trial and this jury’s previous verdicts in July
1999 and April 2000.  Shortly before closing arguments, which began on July 10,
analysts predicted that the jury award in the punitive damages phase would not exceed
$20 billion.  Not surprisingly, they now are predicting – if not outright guaranteeing – that
the jury’s verdict will be overturned on appeal.

             “Rather than heeding the predictions of stock analysts who are not lawyers and
who rely on sources inside the tobacco industry, people should keep in mind that the
Florida’s Courts of Appeal, as well as the Florida Supreme Court, have had ample
opportunity to derail the Engle case, if they had been so inclined.  Instead, these courts
have quite properly refused to do so and have let the case proceed as a class action.
The fact that other courts in other states and under other circumstances have decertified
class actions against the tobacco companies is irrelevant to the Engle case,” Daynard
said.  He also commended the jury for its patience and perseverance as it has served
for over two full years and for its ability to see through the industry’s “bogus claims that it
has fundamentally changed” the way it behaves.  “As Stanley Rosenblatt quite eloquently
put it in his closing arguments, the Day of Reckoning has come for Big Tobacco.  At
long last, the tobacco companies are being held accountable for their despicable and
illegal behavior over the past half century,” Daynard concluded.

Circuit Judge Robert Kaye slowly leafed through the thick packet
of pages detailing the award, then placed his left hand over his
mouth and exhaled. Ten seconds passed and the hushed crowd in the courtroom watched as Kaye fumbled with the papers.

After the wait, Kaye muttered, "I will publish this verdict.'' But he stopped short, raised his right index finger to the jury, smiled, and said:  "Wait. Before I do that, let me think on this for just a second.''

Furrowing his brow, Kaye waited five more seconds before his deliberate reading of the damages.

In the middle of the verdict, Kaye said, "A lot of zeros.''

In a long discourse, Kaye thanked the six jurors who began hearing the case two years ago.

"It has been a momentous time and a momentous occasion as far as the history of jurisprudence is concerned,'' Kaye said.  "Because of the length and complexity of the trial, this trial ... garnered a great deal of attention. You are to be commended for the time and devotion to your duty and never
complaining.''

                  A jury ordered the tobacco industry Friday to pay more than
                  $140 billion in punitive damages to sick Florida smokers, a
                  record-shattering verdict that the cigarette companies had claimed would
                  amount to a "death warrant."

                  "Lot of zeros," Circuit Judge Robert Kaye said after reading the jury's
                  breakdown against each defendant.

                  Lawyers for Big Tobacco had said that the five companies could afford to
                  pay only $150 million to $375 million, and that the companies would be
                  put out of business if the award went much higher. Under Florida law, a
                  punitive verdict cannot bankrupt a defendant.

                  The six jurors, who had sat through a two-year trial and heard 157
                  witnesses, began deliberating the punitive damages question Friday
                  morning after Kaye read final instructions. They deliberated a little less
                  than five hours before reaching a decision.

                  Friday was the third time the jury has deliberated in the case, the first
                 smokers' class-action lawsuit to go to trial. The panel decided in July
                  1999 that the industry makes a deadly product. In the second phase, the
                  jury in April ordered the industry to pay $12.7 million in compensatory
                  damages to three smokers representing the class.

                  The smokers wanted the tobacco companies to pay $196 billion as
                  punishment for making a product that kills 430,000 Americans a year and
                  for misleading the public since the 1950s, when internal research
                  concluded smoking causes cancer.

                  Top executives from all five defendants made unusual appearances to
                  testify they didn't deserve to be punished because they have changed their
                  ways and are already committed to paying billions of dollars to settle the
                  lawsuits brought by the states.

                  The ruling was the largest jury damage award ever, far surpassing the $22
                  billion awarded in Hawaii in 1996 to a treasure hunter, Rogelio Rojas,
                  who sued former Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos for the alleged
                  theft of gold bullion. That verdict was later overturned.

                  The largest previous punitive-damage award was $5 billion against
                  ExxonMobil for the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. The company is
                  appealing. The previous record for punitive damages in a product-liability
                  case was $4.8 billion against General Motors last year in a California car
                  fire. A judge slashed the award to $1.09 billion.

                  The industry filed a mistrial motion earlier Friday based on closing
                  arguments by plaintiffs' attorney Stanley Rosenblatt, charging improper
                  commentary and inflammatory remarks "preclude the jury's rational
                  consideration" of the case. The judge has delayed deciding dozens of
                  mistrial requests.

                  As the case wound down this week, lawyers for both sides spoke of
                  death – the death of Big Tobacco and the deaths of millions of smokers.

                  Dan Webb, attorney for industry-leading Philip Morris Inc., said the
                  awarding of up to $196 billion would be a "death warrant" for the
                  industry.

                  Rosenblatt turned the phrase around Thursday, saying it was the cigarette
                  industry that had issued death warrants to millions of consumers.

                  "We ask you to speak for all those silent, anonymous victims of tobacco
                  grieved by their loved ones but unknown to a callous and deceitful
                  industry," Rosenblatt said.

July 15, 2000
Statement of Joseph Cherner, expert witness in the Engle case, who testified that the tobacco industry could pay $145 billion in punitive damages.

Congratulations to Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt who stood up to an army of tobacco lawyers and won.  As an expert witness for the Rosenblatts, I am deeply gratified that despite vicious attempts by tobacco company lawyers to discredit my financial expertise, the jury chose to believe me, and not to believe the tobacco industry.  Witnesses for the tobacco industry were paid tens of thousands of dollars to testify.  I chose to testify for free.

No matter what ultimately happens in this case, nothing will ever change the fact that six ordinary people/jurors listened to two years of testimony and unanimously found the tobacco cartel guilty of the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.  The truth of this verdict can never be denied.

Joseph Cherner is a former Wall Street executive who left Wall Street to start a charitable foundation dedicated to preventing another generation of tobacco addiction and disease.

Joseph W. Cherner, President
SmokeFree Educational Services, Inc.

BUT, they still lie, they still manufacture and market an addictive lethal drug. Tobacco executives are still making money from addicting people who die from using their products.

RJR, for example, said in court in Mississippi that cigarettes are NOT addictive, but gave the impression in the Florida Engle trial, that RJR agrees cigarettes ARE addictive.  Will the real RJR please stand up?

Tobacco companies tried cosmetics to hide their sins; spread fears of going broke; talks about "safer" and "less hazardous" cigarettes. Some tobacco witnesses said the product is addictive and may cause disease, others disagreed, creating the illusion of a "continuing controversy" where none exists. Philip Morris said they never meant to deceive anyone.   It just happened?

Tobacco companies said -No money -  but Philip Morris "scraped" up enough funds to purchase Nabisco and its debts.  Tobacco companies said -so sorry for what we did -  but they are still marketing an addictive product that kills, and still contributing to politicians at state and national levels.  Business as usual.  How are they different from the Columbian drug lords?

EXCERPTS from The Sun-Sentinel, July 14, 2000, writer Terri Somers, headlined:  Miami-Dade jury to begin deliberating today in historic smoking trial

                       Lawyers for the nation's top five tobacco
                       companies lied about industry reforms to
                       convince jurors they should not award $156
                       billion damages to sick Florida smokers, the
                       smokers' lawyer said Thursday.

                          "Don't dilute your verdict," the lawyer,
                       Stanley Rosenblatt, told the jury while wrapping
                       up the class action trial in the case he filed in
                       1994 on behalf of an estimated 300,000 to
                       700,000 ailing and dead Florida smokers.

                          The jury will begin deliberating today how
                       much the five tobacco companies should pay in
                       punitive damages.

                          Rosenblatt closed this third phase of the
                       case with an unflattering assessment of what
                       the tobacco defendants did in the previous two.

                          "In phase one, (tobacco lawyers) lied to you
                       for nine months about causation, misconduct
                       and addiction and did it under the sign 'We who
                       labor here seek only the truth,'" he said,
                       referring to the wall hanging behind Miami-Dade
                       Circuit Judge Robert Kaye's bench.

                          At the end of that phase, the jurors found the
                       companies produce an addictive product that
                       causes lung cancer and more than 20 other
                       diseases, and conspired to hide the health
                       risks.

                          In phase two, he said, they lied about
                       whether smoking caused the illnesses suffered
                       by the individuals representing the entire class.

                           Those class representatives have been
                       sitting beside him throughout the trial.

                          Two, Mary Farnan and Frank Amodeo, are
                       cancer survivors and the third is the husband of
                       a former smoker, Angie DellaVecchia, who died
                       of lung and brain cancer last year.

                          In this third phase, "instead of finally just
                       being straight with you, they're lying about
                       change and they're lying about being poor,"
                       Rosenblatt said.

                          "Suddenly they've become the victims."
                          The tobacco lawyers called Rosenblatt's
                       suggested damage award unrealistic. They
                       said the five companies could afford to pay
                       about $150 million to $375 million altogether.

                          Rosenblatt criticized the industry for failing to
                       put any financial experts on the stand to
                       discuss the companies' ability to pay.

                          And he ridiculed the "contrite" approach of
                       the tobacco attorneys, how they referred to rich
                       tobacco company executives by nicknames
                       like Mike, Nick, Marty and Benjie, as if they
                       were average working stiffs.

                          As he made the comments, Brown &
                       Williamson CEO Nicholas Brookes sat
                       stone-faced in the courtroom's front row. A
                       bodyguard who has accompanied him
                       throughout the trial sat just outside the door.

                          Earlier Thursday, Brown & Williamson
                       lawyers gave their summation to the jury.

                          "Let me tell you about the new Brown &
                       Williamson," company lawyer Anthony Upshaw
                       said at least three times.

                          "You sit in judgment of the people of Brown &
                       Williamson, all 7,000 of them," Upshaw said.
                       And that extends from the top executive to the
                       factory worker in Macon, Ga., he said.

                          And he fed a theme that has become
                       apparent in the past few weeks of the trial:
                       When it comes to trying to minimize any
                       punitive damage award, it's every company for
                       itself.

                          "There's no Big Tobacco in this phase of the
                       case, there's five separate companies," said
                       Gordon Smith, another company lawyer.

                          If the jury awards the smokers the $156
                       billion damage award suggested by Rosenblatt,
                       Brown & Williamson will be out of business,
                       Smith said. If the jury must levy any punitive
                       award against the company, Smith suggested
                       $2 million to $7 million would be more realistic.

                          The lawyers conceded that Liggett CEO
                       Bennett LeBow was the first to break ranks
                       with the industry by admitting the health risks
                       of smoking and releasing damning internal
                       documents.

                          "But you know who the next one was, Nick
                      Brookes," Upshaw said. But the jury heard
                       nothing during the trial about the company's
                       efforts to muzzle Jeffrey Wigand, a former top
                       executive turned whistleblower. His story was
                       the basis of the movie The Insider, and Kaye
                       said any mention of Wigand or the movie would
                       be too prejudicial.

"Companies are taking in billions, and they're coming in front of you wringing their hands. They've become the victims,'' attorney Stanley Rosenblatt said in closing arguments as the landmark two-year trial neared an end.

The judge will deliver instructions to the jury Friday morning, and jurors will begin deliberating in the punitive damages phase of the class-action case soon afterward.

The smokers are asking for up to $196 billion in punitive damages for 300,000 to 700,000 sick Florida smokers.

Philip Morris attorney Dan Webb said a multibillion-dollar verdict would be a "death warrant'' for the nation's five biggest cigarette makers.

Rosenblatt turned that around, saying that the industry has issued the death warrants to millions of smokers and that the jury has found the malignancy by putting the industry under the microscope.

In his closing words, Rosenblatt told jurors this was "no time for timidity'' and asked them to "wipe out 50 years of treachery'' by the industry.

The defendants have said they could afford only $150 million to $375 million; the difference between their assets and liabilities on their balance sheets is a combined $15.3 billion; and witnesses for the smokers testified Big Tobacco can afford to pay about $150 billion.

Brown & Williamson was the last cigarette maker to offer closing arguments, asking the jury Thursday to make it pay the smallest amount based on the company's lowest rank by profits among the defendants.

Attorney Gordon Smith said 7,000 employees are working to make Brown & Williamson a responsible company, and pleaded: "I ask that you don't kill that dream. Don't stop a better future.''

Rosenblatt told the jury: "They're lying about change, and they're lying about being poor.''

The judge brushed aside an industry request for a mistrial based on a headline in Thursday's Miami Herald that said the cigarette makers could afford to pay billions. None of the jurors spoke up when the judge asked if anyone had seen any news coverage of the trial since Wednesday.

                            MIAMI (AP) -- Tobacco companies have consistently
                            opposed changes proposed by an activist Catholic priest
                            at annual meetings for two decades, he testified Thursday
                            for smokers seeking punitive damages.

                            The Rev. Michael Crosby, tobacco coordinator with the
                            Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, has raised
                            issues about smoking-related disease, addiction and
                            youth and Third World marketing at corporate meetings
                            since 1980.

                            " They have not changed in any way relating to health
                            claims or marketing to youth, " the Milwaukee priest said.
                            Executives confronted at shareholder meetings " refuse to
                            answer the issue of causation."

                            On cross-examination, Crosby said he withdrew a
                            shareholder resolution this year calling for retail cigarette
                            displays behind counters after negotiations with
                            Philip Morris.

                            The company committed to supporting any state
                            legislation modeled on a Texas law requiring cigarettes to
                            be kept behind counters or within view of a clerk if all
                            tobacco products were in the same place.

                            " It was what we consider a baby step, but it was
                            something we had not seen before, " Crosby added later.
                            "They may have made a baby step but no substantial
                            change."

                            Michael Cummings, head of a cancer prevention program
                            at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, estimated
                            693,000 Florida residents had smoking-related illnesses
                            or died of them in the 1990s.

                            A previous witness estimated there were nearly 300, 000
                            smoking-related deaths in Florida in the 1990s.

                            Neither number took into account the four-year statute of
                            limitations running from 1990 to 1994 in the case, but
                            Cummings said his number would stay fairly stable as
                            fresh smokers get sick and sick smokers die.

                       MIAMI -- Ordering the nation's five largest
                       cigarette companies to pay sick smokers $154
                       billion would break the companies and
                       extinguish research to find a less harmful
                       cigarette, their attorneys told a jury on
                       Wednesday.

                          The attorney for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
                       said the company cannot pay a huge punitive
                       damage award to the 300,000 to 700,000 ailing
                       smokers involved in the class action because it
                       has more debt than ready cash.

                          "Like many individuals, Reynolds is living
                       paycheck to paycheck," James Johnson said.

                          Johnson and the other tobacco attorneys
                       have told the jurors that the companies have
                       already been punished for their past deeds by
                       agreeing to pay $254 billion to all 50 states
                       during the next 25 years. And the industry has
                       already begun to make reparations, they said,
                       for conspiring to hide the health risks of the
                       dangerous product produced by the cigarette
                       companies.

                          The attorneys outlined tobacco company
                       efforts to use their Web sites to communicate
                       the health risks of smoking and each
                       company's efforts to prevent youth smoking.

                           Johnson then gave his definition of
                       punishment.

                          "It's not for vengeance or revenge," he said.
                       Likening it to the duty of a parent, he said: "We
                       do it to let them know what they did is wrong.
                       To mold them, to guide them in the future."

                          In this case, he said, "punitive damages are
                       unnecessarily and unilaterally
                       counterproductive."

                          The attorney for Philip Morris, the largest of
                       the five companies, asked the jury not to make
                       the members of the class action instantly
                       wealthy with an unduly massive punitive award.

                          "You'd be passing a message on to smokers
                       that if you continue to smoke, don't quit, you
                       can become instant millionaires above and
                       beyond compensatory damages."

                          "Don't do it," Webb urged the jurors.

                          Stanley Rosenblatt, the lawyer representing
                       the sick smokers in this first smokers' class
                       action to go to trial, wants the companies to
                       pay between $123 billion and $196.8 billion in
                       punitive damages.

                          The Philip Morris attorney suggested that if
                       the jurors insisted on levying punitive damages,
                       $75 million to $300 million would be a more
                       reasonable range.

                          The attorney for Lorillard tobacco company
                       suggested that $46 million would send a strong
                       message to that company, without putting it
                       out of business.

                          "Can you imagine what a used tobacco
                       machine goes for when five tobacco companies
                       have to sell them to try to get $154 billion?"
                       asked Ken Riley, the Lorillard attorney.

                          Aaron Marks, an attorney for Liggett Group,
                       called Rosenblatt's request unbelievable,
                       disappointing and shocking, considering the
                       company's break with the rest of the industry in
                       1997 when its chief executive officer became
                       the first industry insider to admit to the dangers
                       of smoking.

                          Brown & Williamson attorneys are expected
                       to make their closing argument today. They will
                       be followed by Rosenblatt's rebuttal to the
                       tobacco attorneys' summations. The jury could
                       begin deliberating Thursday afternoon.

                     The attorney who has been battling the nation's top five
                     cigarette-makers in a Miami courtroom since October 1998
                     totaled up the damages he says that the companies should
                     pay Florida smokers yesterday.

                     And the bill came to an unprecedented $154 billion.

                     Stanley Rosenblatt said in his closing arguments in the
                     class-action suit over whether the companies deceived
                     smokers that jurors should consider a range of $123 billion
                     to $197 billion in punitive damages.  But he deemed $154
                     billion as an ''appropriate, just number.''

                     ''They think you're going to think that billions are just for the
                    Wall Street people, just for the investment bankers,''
                    Rosenblatt told the six jurors, referring to the tobacco
                    companies. ''Hopefully, you're going to show them that
                    regular people, not engaged in high finance, are not
                    intimidated by these numbers.''

                     Rosenblatt said that his damage estimates are based on the
                     companies' net worth, cash flow, capability of raising wealth,
                     financial resources and trademarks.

                     Among the most valuable thing Philip Morris owns is the
                     trademark for Marlboro, Rosenblatt said, arguing that Marlboro
                     is as widely recognized around the world as Coca-Cola is.

                     Reynolds' top trademarks are its Camel, Doral, Winston and
                     Salem brands. One plaintiffs witness, financier Joseph
                     Cherner, estimated the value of one market-share point at
                     $1.5 billion. By that standard, Reynolds' brands are worth
                     $36 billion.

                     Rosenblatt said that net worth is only one portion of a
                     company's financial resources.

                     Florida law prohibits a jury from bankrupting a company.

                     In beginning his closing arguments, Rosenblatt said, ''The
                     day of reckoning has arrived.''

                     He tried to persuade jurors that the companies can afford his
                     multi-billion-dollar request, and he tried to make the jurors
                     comfortable with awarding such high damages. He assured
                     them that ''tobacco companies are not going anywhere.''

                    ''We live in the real world, and there are 45 million
                     smokers still in the year 2000. They're not  going
                     anywhere.''

                     Aside from the financial details, Rosenblatt argued that the
                     companies haven't changed their conduct. For instance, they
                     still advertise in such magazines with high youth readership
                     as Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone.

                     Additionally, such CEOs as Mike Szymanczyk of Philip Morris
                     Inc. and Andrew Schindler of Reynolds still won't admit that
                     cigarette smoking is addictive and causes lung cancer,
                     Rosenblatt said.

                     YOUTH-SMOKING prevention programs, less risky cigarettes
                     and health warnings on company Web sites are not genuine,
                     Rosenblatt said.

                     ''Whatever changes have occurred are basically
                     public-relations changes,'' he said.

                     He argued that even if the tobacco companies have spent
                     millions on prevention programs and advertisements, the jury
                     should remember 50 years of fraud and outrageous conduct
                     that it found them liable for a year ago.

                     ''What these defendants need to be punished for are five
                     decades of misconduct, five decades of lying, cheating and
                     misrepresentation, that resulted in diseases and death to
                     hundreds of thousands of Floridians,'' Rosenblatt said. ''The
                     level of punishment should fit the level of wrongdoing.''

                     Rosenblatt also attacked Eclipse, the less-risky cigarette that
                     Reynolds is marketing and which is a cornerstone in the
                     company's defense strategy.

                     If Reynolds is financially devastated, company attorneys
                    argued, the company could not invest in less-risky cigarettes
                     such as Eclipse, which the company says heats tobacco and
                     produces less smoke.

                     Reynolds doesn't expect Eclipse to succeed and is using it as
                 &nbs