MIAMI – Closing arguments on Tuesday in a lawsuit charging tobacco company R.J. Reynolds with causing a man’s coronary artery disease saw the attorney for plaintiff Paul Rouse ask for $8.5 million in damages to include future suffering.
However, the defense maintained Rouse caused his own problems through unhealthy living and not from a specific addiction to tobacco.
Both attorneys for the plaintiff and the defense conceded during the two-and-a-half week trial that cigarette smoking is dangerous for your health.
Attorney Cory Hohnbaum of the Atlanta-based law firm of King & Spalding representing R.J. Reynolds said the plaintiff failed to prove his heart problems were solely a result of smoking and that blaming the tobacco company was unfair.
The trial was streamed courtesy of Courtroom View Network.
Rouse, now 64, underwent a triple bypass surgery in 1999 alleging the coronary heart disease necessitating the bypass was caused by 30 years of smoking and his medical problems were caused by the refusal of R.J. Reynolds officials to properly warn smokers of the danger.
Rouse’s attorney Alex Alvaraz of the Miami-based Alvaraz Law Firm said officials of R.J. Reynolds had not been honest with the public going back to the 1950s and over the following decades had engaged in a campaign of misinformation to mislead. The alleged misdeeds included the hiring of scientists, doctors and politicians to lie about the dangers of nicotine and falsifying documents to cover up the facts.
“He (Rouse) was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day for 30 years,” Alvaraz told a jury. “That’s five hours a day smoking. How could you not be addicted?”
Alvaraz said Rouse had grown up in the tobacco growing region of North Carolina and started smoking when he was nine years old.
“Every aspect of his life was with a cigarette in his hand,” he said. “Use your head. Smoking causes coronary artery disease.”
Alvaraz said other conditions linked to heart trouble such as hypertension did not apply to his client.
“His glucose was normal,” he said. “His blood sugar was normal. Mr. Rouse did not manufacture a cigarette that was inhaled. They (R.J. Reynolds) did. They knew it was harming and killing people and very addictive. They sold cigarettes that were defective and unnecessarily dangerous.”
In particular Alvaraz said filters placed on cigarettes and advertised on television for brands such as Winston stating they were freer from nicotine and safer to smoke---was a falsehood designed to spike sales.
Rouse testified during the trial he believed the smoking of filter cigarettes was safer.
“Winston knew the filters didn’t work,” Alvaraz said. “He (Rouse) believed he was safe by smoking a filter cigarette. Paul Rouse did not manipulate the level of nicotine in cigarettes, R.J. Reynolds did. Who bears responsibility? It’s the maker of the product.
The filters were a fraud, they did not filter carcinogens,” he added.
Alvaraz accused the tobacco industry of destroying documents that showed the harmful impacts of cigarette smoke, of removing damming evidence from files, and targeting teenagers as users to insure future sales of an addictive substance.
“Should there be punitive damages, the answer is yes,” he said. “It’s up to you (jury) to decide. He (Rouse) is going to suffer pain for the rest of his life and he wanted to enjoy life. The poor man wanted happiness. You’re the only jury he has.”
Hohnbaum said Rouse could have quit smoking long before his health problems manifested themselves and required the triple bypass surgery, but unlike millions of others have, chose not to quit smoking.
“Millions of people heard that smoking is dangerous and prioritized their health and quit,” Hohnbaum said.
Beginning in the 1960s every pack of cigarettes had a warning label from the U.S. Surgeon General and yet Hohnbaum said Rouse disregarded the message and smoked anyway.
“He (Rouse) testified he knew cigarettes cause disease and death and he knew they were dangerous,” he said.
Hohnbaum said there was no evidence Rouse wanted to quit.
“He wanted to smoke,” Hohnbaum said. “Every habit is not an addiction.”
The advertising and sale of cigarettes were lawful activities and Hohnbaum said R.J. Reynolds could not be held liable for doing what is legal.
“The first time he had a problem with his heart was in 1999,” he said. “That’s what he said. He has to prove that smoking caused the disease.”
Rouse’s case is one of thousands of lawsuits that originated from a case titled “Engle versus Liggett Group,” a 1994 Florida class action suit against tobacco companies in which jurors decided in favor of plaintiffs. The state later decertified the class but allowed individuals to proceed with their own suits against the companies.
Findings in the Engle verdict also determined that tobacco companies had attempted to hide the dangers of smoking from the public.
“According to the (Engle) jury they (tobacco companies) concealed information,” Hohnbaum said. “But those findings do not entitle Mr. Rouse to money in this case.”
A complaint Rouse had about chest pain in April of 1995 was a result of a work accident and indicated a muscle strain not a heart problem Hohnbaum said. Rouse did not follow up with a doctor after an EKG test was performed at the time, he added.
“That was a workplace accident, nobody told him he had heart disease,” Hohnbaum said. “There are other things that can cause chest pain, right? If it was heart disease, he would have kept on getting symptoms. Mr. Rouse said he had no symptoms between 1995 and 1999.”
Hohnbaum said the majority of people with coronary heart disease are non-smokers with other conditions such as hypertension, obesity and family histories of the disease.
“Lots of things cause a buildup of plaque in the arteries,” he said.
Hohnbaum added that doctors in 1999 after his triple bypass told Rouse to alter his habits, to exercise, eat right, lose weight, avoid alcohol and stop smoking.
“Did they say he was addicted to alcohol?” Hohnbaum asked. “They have to prove the addiction caused the disease. He had diabetes and that’s not good. He continued to drink. No one is minimizing heart surgery, but a triple bypass is not a death sentence.”
After the triple bypass Rouse continued to work for 15 years in a physically strenuous job Hohnbaum noted.
“You can’t pin everything that happened to this man on R.J. Reynolds,” he said. “Punitive damages are not warranted in this case.”
Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court Judge Antonio Arzola presided in the case.