
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 7, 1995                   TAG: 9504080030
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS                                 LENGTH: Medium

DEFENDANTS TRY TO DELAY NICOTINE SUIT

Tobacco companies are seeking to delay a federal class-action lawsuit by some 50 million smokers and former smokers until courts decide whether they have enough in common to remain a class.

The lawsuit, which seeks $50,000 for each plaintiff, is the biggest class-action case in history. It accuses tobacco companies of manipulating nicotine levels to hook smokers, and of hiding knowledge that nicotine is addictive.

The defendants are cigarette giants: R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., The American Tobacco Co., Lorillard Tobacco Co., Philip Morris Companies Inc. and Liggett Group Inc.

The tobacco companies want lawsuits against them tried separately. But plaintiffs' lawyers argue that very few people can afford to sue on their own. Sixty law firms pledged $100,000 each toward the suit.

Tobacco company lawyers sought a delay in papers filed Monday with U.S. District Judge Okla Jones II, who ruled in February that anyone who ever ignored a doctor's advice to quit smoking may join the cigarette suit.

The tobacco companies are relying heavily on a recent appeals court ruling that thousands of hemophiliacs who got the AIDS virus from blood-clotting medicine cannot join together to sue drug companies.

Lawyers who filed the lawsuit plan to notify possible plaintiffs through media advertisements and by notices on nationwide computer services such as CompuServe, America Online and Prodigy, and a 900 telephone line.

But the tobacco attorneys said it makes no sense to seek potential plaintiffs until there is a ruling on whether the class meets legal standards.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled 2-1 that allowing one lawsuit against companies that make blood clotting medicine would let one jury ``hold the fate of an industry in the palm of its hand,'' and could ``hurl the industry into bankruptcy.''

It said the companies should not have to risk everything on one ``roll of the dice'' when individual suits could be tried and that differences in state negligence standards make it impossible to try all of the claims as one. The 7th Circuit also found that a single nationwide trial about negligence could prejudice individual trials for fault and cause.

Any one of those grounds applies as well to the tobacco suit, the attorneys said. The 7th Circuit ruling is not binding in Louisiana, where appeals go to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. However, judges often consider rulings from other circuit courts.

by CNB