Warnings on Cigarettes Ruled Enough

A federal appeals court ruled today that warnings of the hazards of smoking on cigarette packs are sufficient to protect tobacco companies from lawsuits stemming from smokers’ sickness or death.

The suit against Liggett & Myers and Liggett Group Inc. was brought by the heirs of Joseph C. Palmer of Newton, who died in 1980 at 49. He smoked up to four packs of L&M; cigarettes daily for 23 years, according to the suit.

The Liggett & Myers appeal stemmed from a federal judge’s ruling in April, 1986, that health warnings on cigarette packages do not protect tobacco companies from lawsuits.

In a long-awaited ruling, the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals said that in requiring the warnings, Congress intended to fulfill an educational purpose but also intended to continue the free flow of trade without harm to the national economy.

“We therefore hold that a suit for damages on a common-law theory of inadequate warning--if the warning given complies with the (congressional) act--disrupts excessively the balance of purpose set by Congress,” the court wrote.

Thus, the three-judge panel found, such lawsuits would “abrogate utterly the established scheme of health protection as tempered by trade protection.”

The court also ruled that many precedents set by other cases in which people were harmed by dangerous products do not necessarily apply because “cigarette smoking, at least initially, is a voluntary activity.”

The Palmer suit blamed his death on smoking and claimed that the defendants were negligent in failing to provide adequate warnings about the risks of smoking. The companies claimed that the federally required warnings about the hazards of smoking shielded them from liability.