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Excerpts from: Tobacco Class-Action Reaches Trial in  W. Virginia

Reuters  Tobacco Class-Action Reaches Trial in W. Virginia   [09/11/01]
  WHEELING, West Va. (Reuters) - A class-action tobacco lawsuit
  demanding medical tests for 250,000 West Virginia smokers went to
  trial on Monday.

  The plaintiffs, people who have smoked the equivalent of a pack of
  cigarettes a day for five years but have no symptoms of
  tobacco-related diseases, want cigarette makers to create a
  court-administered fund to pay for regular medical tests for cancer or
  chronic pulmonary disorders such as emphysema.

  Named as defendants are R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc.'s R.J.
  Reynolds Tobacco Co., Philip Morris Cos. Inc., British American
  Tobacco Plc unit Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., and Loews
  Corp.'s Lorillard Tobacco Co.

  ``These four companies, for over 50 years, have knowingly and
  consciously manufactured, designed and sold a nicotine-delivery device
  called a cigarette ... in a negligent and wrongful manner,'' plaintiffs'
  attorney Scott Segal said during opening arguments in the First Judicial
  Circuit of West Virginia.

  ``They knew they had to make a safer cigarette and test their
  ingredients and the evidence will show they ... continued to sell an
  unsafe product, a product that was unreasonably unsafe for its intended
  use. In almost all their decisions, the motive was profit,'' he added.
 

  Plaintiffs are not allowed to refer to individual smokers as being
  addicted.

  The case became the first class-action lawsuit to reach the trial phase
  last January until Ohio County Judge Arthur Recht declared a mistrial
  because plaintiff witnesses made banned references to nicotine and
  addiction.

  Under West Virginia law, class-action cases cannot depend on
  testimony that refers to issues relevant to individual smokers, such as
  addiction.

  The lawsuit survived an industry motion to decertify its class status and
  later got the green light to proceed anew, under new rules that allow
  use of the word ``nicotine'' only in the context of the assertion that
  cigarettes represent a nicotine-delivery system.