Suit — Jury gives clean chit to tobacco firm

Joseph Nunnally began smoking some time between the age of eight and 10,just a couple of years before health warnings started appearing on packages.He died in 1989 at 37. “It would have been more of a surprise if theindustry had lost this case rather than having won it,” Martin Feldman,tobacco analyst with Salomon Smith Barney said after the verdict wasannounced. “The industry has generally done well within the heartland ofAmerica.”

“It really is a good bellwether test on the issue of personalresponsibility, in terms of smokers willingly taking and knowingly takingthe risk when they smoke,” Sanford C. Bernstein analyst William Pecoriellosaid.

The verdict follows a similar decision in Brooklyn, N.Y., in June, when ajury rejected claims by a former smoker and his wife that he developed lungcancer and emphysema from smoking.

R.J. Reynolds, the principal operating unit of No. 2 U.S. tobacco companyR.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc., maker of brands such as Camel, Winstonand Salem, was the only cigarette-maker named in the case. Michael Ulmer,the lead attorney for Reynolds, said the jury agreed that Nunnally smokeddespite being aware of the risks associated with tobacco.