JURY PUNISHES CIGARETTE MAKER; MARRIAGE TAX PENALTY

A Florida jury Wednesday held Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. responsible
for a smoker's death and ordered the company to pay his family $950,000 --
the largest jury verdict ever in a lawsuit over tobacco's dangers and the
first award of punitive damages in such a case.

The tobacco industry has been under legal attack for decades, but juries
have been reluctant to blame anyone except the smokers. In recent years, the
industry has been hit with a wave of new individual cases, class-action
suits and state actions aimed at recovering tobacco-related health care
costs. The industry has settled a number of those in the past year, but
still has never paid a jury verdict.

Roland ``Eddie'' Maddox, who died last year of lung cancer at age 67, had
smoked unfiltered Lucky Strikes for nearly 50 years before quitting in
1995 -- one year before he was diagnosed with lung cancer. As Wednesday's
decision was announced in a Jacksonville, Fla., courtroom -- and televised
nationally via Court TV -- Maddox's widow and daughter could be seen crying
with happiness.

``I am at a loss for words right now,'' said Maddox's daughter Angie
Widdick, who filed the suit last year and promised her father on his
deathbed that she would pursue it. ``I believe that we made history.''

The family attorney, Norwood Wilner of Jacksonville, had argued before a
six-person jury that the company had negligently failed to warn the public
about the dangers of smoking, had conspired to hide those risks and had sold
a defective product. To support his case, Wilner presented internal company
documents about the dangers and addictiveness of smoking.

Brown & Williamson spokesman Mark Smith said the company was ``shocked'' by
the verdict. ``There was nothing Brown & Williamson did or could have done
that would have in any way influenced Mr. Maddox's decision to smoke,'' he
said. The company, the nation's third-largest tobacco company, will ask the
judge to set aside the verdict and will appeal the decision if necessary,
Smith said.

The company presented evidence at the trial that Maddox understood the risks
of smoking. He would joke about the dangers with co-workers at the
Winn-Dixie supermarket where he worked, and called his cigarettes ``coffin
nails.'' The company also tried to cast doubt on the motives of Maddox's
family, suggesting that they were trying to enrich themselves through the
justice system.

``This is a family that claimed that Mr. Maddox never saw a warning or
understood that cigarettes could be risky until he was diagnosed with cancer
in 1996. We thought that was incredible,'' Brown & Williamson attorney John
Nyan said.

Floyd Matthews, a Wilner law partner, said ``we were stunned'' by the
company's hardball strategy, and that it ``backfired'' with the jury.

The jury deliberated two days after the four-week trial. It also awarded
$52,000 that will go directly to Maddox's insurer, Blue Cross and Blue
Shield, bringing the total judgment to more than $1 million.

Wilner had previously won a $750,000 victory against the same company in
1996 on behalf of smoker Grady Carter. That case is under appeal. Wilner
subsequently lost two lawsuits against the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Corp.

Before the Grady case, the only lawsuit involving the health risks of
tobacco that had ended in a damage award was a $400,000 verdict for the
family of smoker Rose Cipillone in 1988. That verdict, however, was
overturned on appeal, and the family ultimately dropped its efforts.

Another plaintiff had previously won a multimillion-dollar judgment,
including punitive damages, but that was against tobacco maker Lorillard
Inc. over cancers linked to the company's asbestos-containing ``Micronite''
filter, not the dangers of tobacco.

Stock prices for tobacco companies fell after Wednesday's verdict was
announced. The case could also have repercussions in other lawsuits, and the
debate over national tobacco legislation.

Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"