Reynolds Should Pay $10 Billion to Smoker, Gary Argues at Trial

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. should be punished with paying an award of at least $10 billion to a man who developed cancer and emphysema from smoking, his lawyer, Willie Gary, said in an opening statement at a Florida trial.

“We’re going to prove punitive damages over $10 billion, ladies and gentlemen of the jury” Gary said yesterday in state court in Tampa in a suit filed by Leroy Kirkland, 71, a former two-pack-a-day smoker. “You may decide it’s not enough.”

Kirkland’s is the first tobacco trial for Gary, 63, who won a $500 million verdict against a funeral-home chain in a contract dispute and $240 million over claims that Walt Disney Co. stole his clients’ theme-park idea. Kirkland, a retired longshoreman from Tampa who began smoking at age 12, claims he lost his voice box to laryngeal cancer after 40 years of smoking Pall Mall and Salem cigarettes.
Gary showed jurors an advertisement picturing Santa Claus smoking Pall Malls. He told them about tobacco companies giving free cigarettes to U.S. soldiers during World War II. He called the tobacco companies liars and drug dealers.