The Nation - News from May 26, 1988

Testimony in the long-running cigarette product-liability trial in Newark, N.J., ended on a positive note for the plaintiff after U.S. District Judge H. Lee Sarokin ruled that the jury can see the surgeon general’s recent report declaring smoking to be addictive. The admission of the report into evidence struck at a key defense of the three cigarette companies being sued--that individuals smoke out of choice and therefore cannot hold tobacco companies liable. The plaintiff is the widower of longtime smoker Rose D. Cipollone. He contends that his wife became dependent on tobacco after starting to smoke at 16. She died of lung cancer in 1984, at 59.