Jury Says Tobacco Firm Not Liable in Cancer Lawsuit

A jury found the tobacco industry was not responsible for a dying man’s lung cancer Friday, rejecting an attorney’s plea for a stiff penalty to punish the industry’s “utter indifference” to smokers.

The St. Clair County jury provided no monetary damages to Charles Kueper in the nation’s first such trial since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that warning labels don’t protect cigarette makers from lawsuits.

Kueper’s lawyer had urged the jury award as much as $48 million for the 51-year-old former Green Beret, who began smoking as a youth and is expected to die of lung cancer within the next few months.

R.J. Reynolds Co. and the Washington-based Tobacco Institute argued it was Kueper’s choice to smoke more than a pack and a half of Winstons each day and that the type of cancer Kueper has is not directly linked to smoking.

Kueper’s lawyer said R.J. Reynolds and the Tobacco Institute, a trade group, showed an “utter indifference to the suffering of others” and should be punished.