sample="rhetorical" bates="2021194685" isource="pm" decade="1980" class="ue" date="19880000" VISNEWS INTERNATIONAL NEWS CONFERENCE : ...My name is John Scanlon. I would introduce the group of people up here. On my immediate right is Arthur Stevens, who is General Counsel for Lorillard. On his right is Murray Bring, Acting General Counsel for Philip Morris. On his right is Peter Blakely of Arnold and Porter of Washington and Counsel for Philip Morris. On Peter's right is Steve Parish of Shuck, Hardy and Bacon, a Kansas City law firm representing Lorillard. And on Steve Parish's right is Chuck Wall, of the same firm, Shuck, Hardy and Bacon in Kansas City representing Lorillard and Philip Morris. Arthur Stevens will begin the proceedings. He will make a statement. He will introduce Murray Bring, who will make a statement, and then we will be available for questions of any kind. ARTHUR STEVENS: Good morning and thank you very much for coming. John thank you. Well the verdict in the Cipollone case is clearly a victory for the cigarette manufacturers, and any effort to characterize it otherwise is a distortion. This case was trumpeted by the plaintiff's bar for years and years to be the acid test for cigarette product liability litigation. The plaintiff's three law firms prepared it and litigated it for five years and took almost all of its 18 weeks of trial duration for the presentation of their cases. In doing so they observed no scruple in their effort to defame and to discredit the entire tobacco industry and the three defendant tobacco companies before the jury. They failed to do so. Not only did they fail to prove their most critical assertions, they also failed in their quest of punitive damages. And they failed in the face of every possible assistance that they could receive from a court which was demonstrably hostile to the tobacco companies from the outset, and which gave the plaintiff's counsel enormous latitude and consistently preferential rulings, many of which were unwarranted under customary rules of evidence and procedure. This victory is also important because it sends a message to lawyers and to plaintiffs that juries will not allow them to reek huge financial windfalls by pursuing unreasonable product liability lawsuits. And in that sense, I urge you to view with skepticism any claim that this verdict is really a victory for the plaintiff and his law firms. The plaintiff's law firms invested by their own admission over two million dollars of their own time and their own money to bring this case to trial. And what do they have to show for it? On the narrow and technical basis of an expressed warranty allegedly made by Liggett over 22 years ago, the jury awarded a few hundred thousand dollars to Mr. Cipollone. In light of the jury's other decisions that certainly sounds like an illogical and a curious award and suggests, at least to me, that the jury somehow felt some sympathy for Mr. Cipollone. That result we are told by Liggett is going to be appealed and we have every confidence that it will be reversed on appeal. This is a clear demonstration that these cases are just not worth pursuing. And I suspect that the six or so other plaintiff law firms that are handling the majority of these cases around the country will quickly come to the same conclusions. In reviewing this case, remember that this jury completely exonerated all of the defendants - Lorillard, Philip Morris and Liggett of the principle charges. One, that the companies fraudulently misrepresented and concealed material facts concerning health risks associated with cigarette smoking. And two, that the companies conspired prior to 1966, to misrepresent or conceal material facts about cigarette smoking and health. All three companies were exonerated of those charges. Furthermore, we have heard much from the plaintiff's counsel and his colleagues throughout this case about the so-called secret company documents. They were going to reveal and they were going to prove the conspiracy alleged by the plaintiff. Well its abundantly clear that the jury completely rejected the distorted and the piecemeal misrepresentation of those company documents made by plaintiff's counsel when they decided in favor of the companies, as I've said, on the issues of fraud, misrepresentation and conspiracy. There were no smoking guns among those company papers. And that red herring of an issue is not permanently put to rest. BRING: I don't believe so. The fact of the matter is that despite the fact that the jury answered yes to Question 15, they answered zero to the amount of damages that should be awarded to Mrs. Cipollone. These cases are about, as Arthur said, money. If the plaintiff does not recover money, they are not going to bring these cases. This jury answered yes to that question. It is not the first time that a question of that type was answered yes by a jury. But the fact of the matter is that you cannot recover...(off mike)... establishing one element of a cause of action. That is simply one element of the cause of action. So I don't think it's going to open the flood gates. I don't think, for example, that there are going to be very many plaintiff's lawyers around the country who are going to find that it is an attractive investment of their time and resources to establish to a jury that there may have been a contributing factor in the smoking to a disease, if at the end of the road there is no recovery. And that is what happened here on the cause of action that you're talking about. : Myron Levin. LEVIN: Mr. Bring you said that the industry is continuing to search out the answer of the raging controversy over whether smoking causes disease. What kind of .. will be necessary, how many decades more will it take before you satisfy yourself that it either does or doesn't cause disease? BRING: Well I think that's a question Mr. Levein that ought to be addressed to the National Cancer Institute, to the Public Health Service, to all the public organizations that have invested billion of dollars in trying to... LEVIN: You have given no answer on this. I am asking you because you're the ones saying that you are not sure yet what the answer is, they are already sure. BRING: Well they say they're sure, but they don't have the evidence to support it. The fact of the matter is, and this was brought out in extensive testimony during the course of this trial, that there are three basic approaches to the issue of causation. There is epidemiological evidence, which is statistical evidence, which even the plaintiffs' experts conceded does not establish causation. It merely indicates a basis for further investigation. There is animal experimentation which consists primarily of skin painting tests, which experts on both sides of the controversy admit do not establish that the creation of tumors on the backs of mice by painting highly concentrated doses of tobacco tar, indicates that the ingestion of whole smoke into the human lung causes cancer. The most interesting, and I think the most significant fact, is that in the dozens of experiments that have been conducted over the years, both by the industry and by hundreds of independent researchers, where they have tried to induce the creation of tumors in the lungs of experimental animals through the inhalation of whole smoke, that none of those experiments has created tumors. I think that is the critical fact, and that is the basis upon which not only this industry, but a number of responsible scientists around the world, have concluded that the scientific basis for causation has simply not been established. Q: (Inaudible) BRING: Well never is a word that I don't like to use, but the fact of the matter is that until the answer is found, and until the mechanism is discovered it makes not sense for us, or in my view, anyone else, to conclude that causation has been established. : Question back here. Q: This question about Judge Sarokin and Mr. Stevens leveled some pretty serious charges... ARTHUR STEVENS: I indicated that he had demonstrated his hostility towards us. He did so in pretrial rulings. He did so in the ruling of preemption, which was reversed by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. We made numerous efforts to re...him. We made at least four motions for mistrial. It is clear from any reasonable reading of the record, that many many of his rulings were preferential, unwarranted. He set aside the local rules with respect to many many issues. And it is there in the record. He was not bashful about it. : Well I'm not going to make a comment as to the price of stock because that is just not my ballgame. Is the writing on the wall? The environment with respect to smoking, particularly public smoking is changed. The diversification that you talk about that has taken place with respect to a number of tobacco companies is not new. That diversification has been taking place for over 30 years. So whether that is some indication of some handwriting on the wall, or some spectre that you see, you can draw your own conclusions. Cigarette smoking is not as popular an activity as it was 30 years ago, but a lot of other things are not as well. That is not at issue. What is at issue is what use is made properly of the courts. What use is made of litigation as a means of recovering or what you consider to be an alleged wrong when you are well-informed and make a freedom of choice. And you will continue to try and draw attention from that, but that's what the result in this case is important. : Lady in red. Q: ABC.... will you please make a comment about the (inaudible).... : It's a tough business. : I think it's a very healthy industry. The fact of the matter is that the litigation that you refer to has not had a significant impact. I think it is a very manageable problem. I think the Cipollone verdict will make it even more manageable. There is no question, as Arthur has indicated that there are changing attitudes about smoking. But the fact of the matter is that there are still, as I indicated, 55 to 60 million people in this country who smoke, and hundreds of millions of people in other countries who smoke and enjoy smoking. So I don't think - to also answer a similar question in the back, that any handwriting is on the wall. I think this is a very healthy industry, and I think one need only look at the financial results of the companies in the industry to recognize that that's the case. : Let's take about one or two more questions. Mr. Query? Q: I would like to know your strongest grounds for appeal? Is it the instruction on the ... (inaudible) : Remember neither of these clients are appealing. : We won, we don't have to appeal. : I think the strongest grounds that Liggett has to appeal for are on the breach of warranty. First, they will argue that their motion for summary judgment which was filed before the trial, and the motion for directed verdict, which was filed during the trial, should have been granted by the Judge. That there was, as a matter of law, no material fact in dispute, that is not express warranty, as that term is used in the law was made. And I think that the trial and the evidence that was offered in support of the breach of warranty claims demonstrated that there was never an expressed warranty in the first place. So I think that is the first ground. The second ground is the charge, the details of the charge of breach of warranty, and I'm not an expert on this so I can't tell you what they all are, but what I do know. One serious problem that Liggett perceived in the charge and in the verdict form is that it appeared to permit, because of the way the verdict form was written, and the way the charge was delivered, a verdict to find that the person who entered into the contract, that is Mrs. Cipollone, suffered no damages, no injury. And that is in fact what the jury did find. But somehow awarded damages and found injury on the part of someone who didn't enter into the contract. And that is not contract law. That is a bizarre result I think that was produced by a verdict form that should not have been used by the court, and a charge that should not have been delivered. I think those are the principle grounds for appeal. : Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.