Big Win for Lorillard in Asbestos Case : Liability: Jurors decide that an ailing smoker failed to prove he smoked specially filtered Kent cigarettes during key years. The outcome on pending similar suits is unclear.

Lorillard Inc., the nation’s fourth-biggest cigarette maker, on Monday won a closely watched product liability case when a federal court jury in Philadelphia declared that the victim of a rare asbestos-related cancer failed to prove that he smoked the firm’s Kent brand in the years that it contained asbestos.

Jurors deliberated four hours before deciding that Peter Ierardi, a 56-year-old Philadelphia stockbroker suffering from mesothelioma, did not prove he smoked Kents between 1952 and 1956, when its patented “Micronite” filter contained a particularly virulent type of asbestos.

Because the verdict turned on that question, jurors never got to the pivotal issue of whether Kent smokers in that period sucked asbestos into their lungs--and in sufficient amounts to cause disease.

The outcome thus gave little indication of what may happen in several similar cases pending against Lorillard and Hollingsworth & Vose Co., supplier of the asbestos filter material.

After the three-week trial, U.S. District Judge Clarence Newcomer instructed jurors to first decide if Ierardi had proved that he smoked Kents during the years that they contained asbestos. If the answer was yes, they would move on to the other questions.

But jurors said no, and found for Lorillard.

“Obviously, we’re very pleased,” said Allen Purvis, one of Lorillard’s lawyers. “We’re confident that, even if they had gone on to the next question--did (asbestos) fibers get out and cause this man’s disease . . . they would have returned with a defense verdict.”

“Didn’t even get past first base. Can’t believe it,” Dan Childs, one of Ierardi’s lawyers, said bitterly. “I have no doubt that, regardless of what happened today, it’s not the last that’s been heard of Kent Micronite cases.”

Ierardi said he switched to Kent in 1953, when he was an 18-year-old serviceman at Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois. However, a Lorillard salesman testified that he was unable to get Chanute to stock Kent until late 1956. Thus, Lorillard claimed, Ierardi did not become a Kent smoker until the asbestos was removed.

When it launched Kent in 1952, Lorillard boasted that the new brand’s Micronite filter offered “the greatest health protection in cigarette history.” The company even advertised Kent in medical journals, hoping doctors would prescribe it for patients who were unable or unwilling to quit.

The ads did not mention that the filter contained crocidolite, or “African blue” asbestos, an especially dangerous form of the lung-scarring mineral.

Ierardi’s lawyers said his only asbestos exposure came from smoking Kents. They said the company had expert findings in 1954 that asbestos particles were escaping from the filter, but took two years to remove it.

Lorillard attorneys said other experts had advised the firm that no asbestos was escaping. Even if traces got out, they claimed, the dose was too small to cause disease.