Word: tobacco
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...most visible trouble for the industry comes from about 40 product-liability suits in which cigarette manufacturers are charged with causing disease and, in some cases, death. Similar lawsuits have been around since the 1950s, and tobacco firms have always defeated any claims. This week in Santa Barbara County, Calif., Superior Court, a case comes to trial. R.J. Reynolds is the sole cigarette manufacturer named in the lawsuit, but tobacco makers are closely following the case. Says Robert Rukeyser, vice president of American Brands, maker of Lucky Strike and Pall Mall: "We take these suits very seriously...
...plaintiffs lawyer is Melvin Belli, 78, who is renowned for his personal-injury liability work. Belli thinks his case has been strengthened by court rulings in somewhat similar suits outside the tobacco industry. In the past, plaintiffs had to prove that a manufacturer was negligent in making its products. Recently, though, courts have allowed plaintiffs to collect damages without such proof. They need only establish that a manufacturer has made a defective product...
...Tobacco companies have not been standing by doing nothing as their stocks go down. Philip Morris, in buying General Foods, and R.J. Reynolds, in taking over Nabisco, have made dramatic moves that will change the structure of those companies. Philip Morris, which had earlier acquired Miller Brewing and Seven-Up, will now become the largest U.S. consumer-products manufacturer, with sales of more than $23 billion. Reynolds, owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Del Monte foods, will be close behind. Its revenues will exceed $19 billion. Since both cigarettes and food are sold in grocery stores and supermarkets and both...
...Tobacco manufacturers insist that liability lawsuits had no bearing on their corporate strategies. Says Rukeyser of American Brands, which has made an average of two acquisitions a year during the past 20 years: "We're not being frightened away from tobacco...
...been known to tell them at the Black Cat bar, one of the two wateringholes in tiny Seligman, Ariz., with a longneck Budweiser in front of him. One recent night, after gently tapping some Bull Durham tobacco into his rolling paper, Knox pulled tight the yellow drawstrings on the pouch. He moistened the paper, rolled the cigarette, lit it. Then he leaned over the bar and, in a soft voice, recited an old Bruce Kiskaddon verse about the dangers of an enraged cow: "Think a cow boy cain't run? Well you aint seen one sail/ When a cow blows...