Smoker to Receive $198,400 in Kansas

The tobacco industry suffered an unexpected defeat in Kansas on Friday, when a federal jury ordered two cigarette firms to pay $198,400 and as-yet unspecified punitive damages to a former smoker.

The verdict in Kansas City was a victory for David Burton, 66, a former janitor and railroad worker who lost his legs to a circulatory disease that jurors found was caused by his smoking. The eight jurors ordered R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. to pay $196,416 in compensatory damages and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. to pay $1,984 for Burton’s medical bills and economic losses.

Reynolds also was found liable for punitive damages for fraudulently concealing the risks and addictiveness of smoking, according to the unanimous verdict. The punitive damages will be determined by U.S. District Judge John W. Lungstrum.

The outcome of the case brought several firsts. Cigarette makers had never previously lost a case in the conservative Midwest and, except for a case overturned on appeal, had not been defeated in federal court--where stricter rules of evidence often favor the defense. Nor had tobacco companies lost a case involving peripheral vascular disease, the smoking-related ailment that led to the amputation of Burton’s legs.

Friday’s verdict “proves that tobacco companies are vulnerable in a wheat state, granola state, sunshine state and wherever juries get a chance to learn exactly what cigarette companies have been doing

Daniel W. Donahue, senior vice president for Reynolds, said the evidence presented at the trial “does not support this verdict.... Reynolds Tobacco did not conceal any information from Mr. Burton,” he said.

According to evidence in the case, Burton began smoking in 1950 and quit in 1993, when he lost his legs.

Both companies were found guilty of failing to warn about the risks of smoking before warning labels appeared in the 1960s. The jury rejected a claim that the companies’ brands were defectively designed.