CRASS-ACTION LAWSUIT; HISTORIC RULING FINDS BIG TOBACCO GUILTY OF SELLING DEADLY PRODUCT.

Byline: David Kidwell and Martin Merzer Knight Ridder Newspapers

In the most sweeping defeat for the U.S. tobacco industry in its history, a six-person Miami-Dade jury - including one smoker and two ex-smokers - decided that Big Tobacco showed ``extreme and outrageous conduct'' by selling a defective product it knew caused a host of fatal illnesses.

They found cigarettes ``defective and unreasonably dangerous,'' tobacco companies made ``false or misleading statements,'' concealed material information, conspired to ``misrepresent information relating the health effects of cigarette smoking,'' and acted with ``reckless disregard'' in selling cigarettes to Florida smokers.

Although tobacco companies have lost a handful of cases when sued by individual smokers, this is the first-ever loss in a class action, leading some industry analysts to predict renewed scrutiny by lawmakers under pressure to regulate nicotine, and a complete overhaul in the industry's longstanding defense that its product is neither addictive nor dangerous.

``The industry faces a serious threat from these cases right now,'' said Ann Gurkin, a tobacco analyst with the investment firm Davenport & Co. ``They have promised they are changing their defense strategy. It seems they have been a little slow doing it.''

Florida's class of some 500,000 smokers will have to wait with industry insiders to see dollar signs, however. Damages will be decided by the same jury at a second phase of the trial, now more than a year old.

The attorney for the smokers, Stanley Rosenblatt, has asked for $200 billion.

The six jurors - a bank teller, a welder, an assistant principal, a postal worker, a head custodian, and a telephone serviceman - deliberated for 6-1/2 days before agreeing with Rosenblatt on almost all counts.

It took Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Robert Kaye 14 minutes to read the 12 typewritten pages of the verdict form.

The courtroom was filled with spectators, more than 100 jammed into six rows of hard, wooden benches. Slowly, it dawned on them. This was a clean sweep for the plaintiffs. This was history.

With each affirmative verdict read by Kaye, the audience stirred a bit more. At first, murmurs of approval. Then, a single clap of applause. A bit later, a fist raised in triumph. At the end, a ``thumbs up'' signaled by Rosenblatt to his supporters in the courtroom.

And then, a brief burst of cheers.

The case was so complex, so vigorously fought that it spanned exactly one year and one day. Jury selection began July 6, 1998. Testimony, closing arguments and jury deliberation consumed more than eight months.

A team of 10 lawyers representing the largest tobacco manufacturers - including Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and the Liggett Group - filed out of the courtroom without comment, still under gag order. The tobacco attorneys argued for months that there is no definitive proof smoking is dangerous, and that they have complied with all requests from Congress for warnings on cigarette packs.

The other side's ``view of the evidence is that smoking isn't voluntary . . . that smokers are brainwashed into smoking by herds of horses and cowboys,'' Robert Heim, lead defense attorney, said during closing arguments. ``But there is overwhelming evidence, overwhelming, that smokers have been aware of the risks of smoking well before any of us in this courtroom were alive.''