Thomas Workman Jr.; Defended Tobacco Firm in Key Victory

Thomas E. Workman Jr., a Los Angeles attorney who successfully defended R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in the first trial in the death of a cigarette smoker, has died. He was 73.

Workman, whose other clients included Standard Oil Co. and the biotech giant Amgen Inc., died Wednesday in South Pasadena of emphysema.

In 1985, the veteran litigator won a 9-3 civil jury verdict for Reynolds in the smoking case in Santa Barbara Superior Court.

Workman’s courtroom opponent was the “king of torts,” Melvin Belli, who represented the family of John Galbraith.

Belli argued that Galbraith, a three-pack-a-day smoker who died at age 69 of heart disease, lung cancer and emphysema, had started smoking before cigarette packages carried any health warnings and was too addicted to stop by the time he learned of the hazards.

Although many other similar cases were in various stages of litigation across the country in the mid-1980s, the Santa Barbara case was the first to go before a jury. The judge accused Belli of rushing the case to trial in order to reap nationwide “first-trial” publicity, but the trial proceeded.

Workman, himself a smoker of Reynolds-made Camel Lights, denied that Reynolds products were addictive or necessarily the cause of Galbraith’s death, citing his “long and terrible medical history” of tuberculosis, chronic ulcers, pulmonary fibrosis and heart disease.

“Nobody forced him to smoke; nobody put a gun to his head,” Workman told the jury. “He smoked because he liked to and because he liked the taste. That’s the reason anybody smokes.”

A decade earlier, Workman had as deftly defended Standard Oil and other companies against class-action consumer-protection lawsuits, including false-advertising claims involving a gasoline additive’s influence on pollution.

After Workman left the courtroom at age 65, he became vice president, secretary and general counsel for the Thousand Oaks-based Amgen Inc.

Workman earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Loyola University. He served in the Marines during the Korean War, retiring as a colonel. He practiced with the Los Angeles firm of Music, Peeler and Garrett.

Workman is survived by his wife of 40 years, the former Mary Louise Ott; two children, Mary Hatton and Thomas J. Workman; two brothers, Henry and David; and two grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. at Holy Family Church in South Pasadena.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the church at 1501 Fremont Ave., South Pasadena, CA 91030.