Smoker Wins $2.2 Million in Asbestos Case

A Baltimore jury has returned a verdict of $2.2 million against Lorillard Inc., marking the cigarette maker’s third defeat in cases involving disease caused by the asbestos formerly used in the filters of its Kent cigarettes. The plaintiff, Charles Connor, 75, sued after being diagnosed in June 1997 with mesothelioma, a rare and usually fatal form of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Connor had been a Kent smoker for about eight years, including several in the 1950s when the brand’s patented Micronite filter was made with crocidolite, a particularly virulent form of asbestos. The filter, introduced in 1952, contained asbestos until 1956, when it was quietly redesigned. Greensboro, N.C.-based Lorillard, the fourth-biggest U.S. cigarette maker, said it will appeal. Lorillard lost two Micronite cases in 1995 but has won nine others and succeeded in getting about two dozen dismissed. About a dozen similar suits are pending in courts across the country. The verdict Thursday was also against Hollingsworth & Vose Co., an East Walpole, Mass., firm that made the filter material for Lorillard. However, Lorillard promised in a 1952 agreement to indemnify Hollingsworth & Vose for claims arising from any “harmful effects” of the filter.