Tobacco Firm Not Liable in Smoking-Death Case

The jury in a case linking the hazards of asbestos and smoking found Friday that American Tobacco Co. was not liable in a former shipyard worker’s lung-cancer death but should have put warning labels on cigarette packs sooner.

The federal jury awarded no damages in the death last year of John Ray Gunsalus, 55, of Chester.

The case was decided less than two weeks after a jury in Newark, N. J., decided that Liggett Group Inc. should pay $400,000 to the widower of a lifelong smoker. It was the nation’s first monetary award against a cigarette maker.

Two Key Questions

The jury in the Gunsalus case had to answer two questions--were Pall Mall cigarettes prior to 1966 “defective at the time sold in that they failed to provide a warning,” and were they a substantial cause of Gunsalus’ death?

The panel answered yes to the first question, faulting the company for not cautioning about the dangers of tobacco before 1966, when warnings began to be printed on cigarette packages, as mandated by Congress.

To the second question, the jury answered no. To award damages, it had to find that cigarettes were a substantial cause of Gunsalus’ death. Gunsalus’ estate had sought an unspecified amount for pain and suffering.

American Tobacco attorney Edward F. Mannino had contended that smoking’s dangers were not the issue, but he instead told the jury that Gunsalus drank heavily, suffered multiple stab wounds and had three heart attacks before dying of lung cancer.

Cites Lack of Warnings

Attorneys for Gunsalus’ estate tried to show that American Tobacco produced a defective product because cigarette packages carried no warnings for people who work near asbestos. Gunsalus worked for several years at a Chester shipyard where asbestos was prevalent.

According to testimony from Dr. Paul Epstein of Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia, Gunsalus died of cancer caused by smoking and asbestos exposure.

Epstein, a witness for the Gunsalus estate, said the interaction of asbestos and cigarette smoke causes a far greater risk of cancer than either substance does on its own.