Justices Uphold Libel Award to Cigarette Firm

The Supreme Court today let stand a $3-million libel award won by a cigarette manufacturer against CBS Inc. and a television anchorman in Chicago.

The court, without comment, rejected arguments that the award--one of the largest libel verdicts ever upheld on appeal--violated the rights of the network and its newscaster.

Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., which makes Viceroy cigarettes, accused CBS and WBBM-TV anchorman Walter Jacobson of libeling it in a Nov. 11, 1981, broadcast.

The Chicago station is owned and operated by CBS.

Jacobson was accused of libeling the cigarette company in a nightly feature called “Walter Jacobson’s Perspective.”

He said there was a Viceroy advertising strategy to attract young people to smoking by relating cigarettes “to pot, wine, beer and sex.” He said the idea was to present cigarette smoking as “an initiation into the adult world . . . as an illicit pleasure.”

Confidential Report Cited

His remarks were based in part on what he said was a confidential report prepared by the Federal Trade Commission.

A federal jury awarded the cigarette company $5 million. The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld $3 million of the award against CBS and $50,000 against Jacobson.

The appeals court rejected arguments that the broadcast was intended as opinion and thus could not be libelous.

The appeals court said the remarks about Viceroy were intended to be factual, even if the tone of the broadcast made it sound like something else.

“The fact that a report is delivered in a caustic tone does not turn a statement of fact into a statement of opinion,” the appeals court said.

There was insufficient evidence that the cigarette company actually adopted a strategy of attracting young smokers by relating cigarettes “to pot, wine, beer and sex,” the appeals court said. It added that the FTC report did not make such allegations and, therefore, the jury was entitled to find that Jacobson’s broadcast was not a fair summary of the commission report.

Finally, the appeals court ruled that Jacobson and CBS acted with “actual malice” in broadcasting the commentary.