Appeals Court Bars Suits by Smokers Ill Before ’98

Tobacco companies scored a legal victory Friday in San Francisco, where a state appeals court ruled that sick smokers whose ailments were diagnosed before 1998 could not file injury suits.

The ruling stems from a 1988 California law that granted cigarette makers near-immunity from suits by ailing smokers. The law was changed in 1998 to allow such cases to be filed. But in its ruling Friday, the 1st District Court of Appeal said smokers whose illnesses were diagnosed while the 10-year ban was in place may not pursue claims against cigarette makers now.

The ruling provides some relief for the tobacco industry, which is bracing for a wave of lawsuits in what is widely considered the country’s most anti-smoking state.

However, the decision does not overturn either of the recent multimillion-dollar verdicts won by lung cancer sufferers Leslie J. Whiteley and Patricia Henley. Nor does it bar claims by other ex-smokers, like Whiteley and Henley, whose illnesses were diagnosed after the immunity law was changed in January 1998.

H. Joseph Escher III, an attorney for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the second-largest U.S. cigarette maker, said the decision should prevent about 75 pending anti-tobacco suits from going forward.

“This is definitely a win for us because it vindicates the position we’ve argued for the last couple of years,” he said.

The ruling involved a pair of suits by ex-smokers Albert J. Pavolini and Edwin Brigham, whose lung cancers were diagnosed in 1997 and 1996, respectively. Family members continued the cases against R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. and Lorillard Tobacco Co. after the men died.

Madelyn Chaber, a lawyer for the families who also handled the Whiteley and Henley cases, described the ruling as “very narrow,” saying she believed it would preclude only a few pending cases. She also said she may appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.

Chaber said that, since a one-year statute of limitations normally applies to all types of personal-injury cases, a different decision by the appeals court might have benefited only smokers diagnosed within a year of the change in the law.

In March, a jury in San Francisco Superior Court ordered Philip Morris Cos. and R.J. Reynolds to pay $21.7 million to Whiteley and her husband. In February 1999, Henley won $51.5 million in damages from Philip Morris in the same court, although the judge in her case later reduced the award to $26.5 million. Cigarette makers have appealed both verdicts.

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Bloomberg News contributed to this report.