Antonio Cipollone; Filed Suit Over Wife’s Smoking Death
Antonio Cipollone, whose landmark lawsuit against three cigarette companies over his wife’s death resulted in the first smoker-death jury award, died Jan. 10.
His death came five days after a federal appeals court threw out the $400,000 judgment.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that Cipollone, 66, a retired Italian immigrant steel worker who had filed the suit as his wife was dying, was admitted to Community Memorial Hospital in Toms River, N.J., on Jan. 4, suffering from pneumonia and heart failure. He had undergone quadruple-bypass surgery in 1986.
“It didn’t seem to concern him in the least,” his second wife, Dorothy, said about the reversal of the judgment. “He never got up-tight about anything.”
On Jan. 5, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the judgment a Newark federal court jury had awarded him against Liggett Group Inc. The court, in a complex ruling, affirmed a U.S. District Court ruling that dismissed claims of Cipollone and his family that the cigarette companies had failed to issue warnings about the risks of tobacco smoking after 1965, when a federal labeling requirement took effect.
The appeals court ordered a new trial, opening the door for new issues. In ordering the new trial the court said Cipollone had “live claims” against the three tobacco firms on grounds that they continued to market the product knowing the risks of cigarette smoking.
Cipollone had been carrying on the lawsuit brought by him and his first wife, Rose, who died at age 58 of lung cancer in 1984 after smoking for 42 years. The lawsuit, first filed in 1983, named Liggett, Lorillard Inc. and Philip Morris Inc., which made the cigarettes Rose Cipollone smoked.
“He was happy that he had gone through with whatever his wife Rose had started. He never had regrets,” said Dorothy Cipollone.
Cipollone’s attorney, Marc Z. Edell, said the family was still deciding whether to continue the case. “My impression was, it was so much a part of Rose’s life and Tony’s life, they don’t want to let it go,” he said.
Charles Wall, an attorney for Liggett and Philip Morris, said, “We’re very sad, and sorry, and do express our sympathy to the family.”
He said it was unclear what effect Cipollone’s death would have on the case, which was being handled by Cipollone’s lawyers on a contingency basis.
Born in a village between Rome and Naples, Cipollone left Italy at age 15 with his mother and two sisters, and settled in New York City. He worked on construction jobs, with U.S. Steel from 1950 to 1979, and operated his own cable-splicing business from 1978 until his retirement in 1986.
In addition to his wife, survivors include a son and two daughters from his marriage to Rose.
