Laymen's Verdict

The state with the strongest law holding a manufacturer responsible for the purity of its products is Louisiana. To San Francisco Lawyer Melvin ("The King of Torts") Belli, who has made a career out of damage suits, Louisiana seemed the ideal place to establish a legal precedent that tobacco companies can be held liable for death from lung cancer.*

Belli's plaintiff was Mrs. Victoria St. Pierre Lartique, who wept as the defense attorney described her late husband as "a human chimney"; she testified that he smoked so much that she had to get out of the house to breathe. From the age of nine he smoked two to five packs of cigarettes a day. His brands: King Bee and Picayunes (both made by Liggett & Myers) and Camels (R. J. Reynolds). Lartique died five years ago at 65 of lung cancer.

Star witness for Belli was famed New Orleans Surgeon Alton Ochsner, one of the most outspoken of all doctors in his conviction that smoking causes cancer. Said Ochsner: "I have yet to see the physician who will not admit that tobacco causes cancer except the doctors employed by the tobacco companies and the doctor who is addicted." Ochsner said he had examined the autopsy material on Lartique and was positive he had died of lung cancer induced by excessive smoking.

For the defense, Dr. Harry S. N. Greene, professor of pathology at Yale University's medical school, testified that the case against smoking has not been proved. He said he smokes, even when he has a chest cold, because it brings on a "productive cough" that eases the pain in his chest. Dr. Thomas H. Burford, professor of thoracic surgery at St. Louis' Washington University, said that he smokes about a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, but he has no sympathy for the person who cannot stop smoking. Said he: "I do it every month or so just to prove to myself I can."

After listening to 14 days of testimony, the jury, composed of seven smokers and five nonsmokers, deliberated for only two hours and 40 minutes before reaching a verdict. It has not been proved, found the jury, that smoking causes cancer.

*In Florida two months ago, a jury found that the deceased husband of a plaintiff died from cancer caused by smoking, but it refused to hold the company liable.

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