Jury decides ‘big tobacco’ is not responsible for Manatee man’s cancer

MANATEE — A jury decided this afternoon that several tobacco companies were not responsible for causing a man’s laryngeal cancer after he smoked cigarettes for about 37 years.

The 3 1/2-week retrial of a lawsuit filed by Jimmie Willis, who is about 70, ended after a jury of five women and two men deliberated for five hours today.

“Just disappointed,” said Hank Uiterwyk, an attorney representing Willis, who has a quarter-size hole in his throat. “We’ll be back.”

Jurors were asked whether to award compensatory damages to Willis. He has spent about $412,000 for surgeries and treatment for laryngeal cancer, lung cancer, bladder cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

A majority of the jurors outside the court room declined to comment on why they chose the verdict.

This was the second trial for Willis after a mistrial in May when a juror wanted to award Willis $50 million. Other jurors wanted to award him $12 million to $15 million, which resulted in a mistrial.

Uiterwyk argued during closing arguments this week that tobacco companies such as Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. created cigarettes that were the “perfect drug delivery device” to deliver nicotine and get people hooked. They used ads to entice youths, such as Willis, who was about 16 when he became a regular smoker, he said.

Willis smoked on average 1 1/2 packs of cigarettes a day —sometimes more. He began his days by lighting a cigarette and sometimes woke up in the middle of the night to smoke.

He tried quitting several times by leaving his cigarettes in his car when he went to work, according to attorneys.

Jim Johnson, an attorney representing R.J. Reynolds, argued Willis had plenty of opportunities to quit over the years after the first risks of smoking became public in 1964, when the surgeon general reported smoking cigarettes may be hazardous to your health. He argued Willis made a conscious decision to continue smoking.

Read the rest of the story in Thursday’s Bradenton Herald.

This story was originally published October 6, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Jury decides ‘big tobacco’ is not responsible for Manatee man’s cancer."