NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The maker of Skoal and Copenhagen smokeless tobacco has agreed to pay $5 million to the family of a man who died of mouth cancer in what is believed to be the first wrongful-death settlement won from a chewing tobacco company.
A legal expert said the case could open the door for more lawsuits against makers of chewing tobacco, an industry that drew fewer legal battles during the 1990s than cigarette manufacturers.
U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. will pay the award to the family of Bobby Hill of Canton, N.C., who began chewing tobacco at 13. He died in 2003 at 42.
Attorney Antonio Ponvert III, who represented Hill’s relatives, told The Associated Press about the agreement Tuesday. Regulatory documents confirmed the deal.
Steven Callahan, a spokesman for Altria, which acquired U.S. Smokeless Tobacco last year, said the company admitted no liability and does not make any health claims about its products.
Ponvert and Mark Gottlieb, director of the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University in Boston, both said the Hill family settlement is the first case of its kind.
Gottlieb predicted more lawsuits targeting smokeless tobacco would follow, calling the settlement “a wake-up call” to plaintiffs’ attorneys “that there are a lot of victims of smokeless tobacco use out there, and it’s possible these cases can be successful.”
Smokeless tobacco companies managed to fend off most previous lawsuits. In the past, lawyers focused more on cigarette makers because of stronger evidence to back up their claims, even though smokeless tobacco is harmful as well, Gottlieb said.
“So this is an unusual instance and runs counter to what had been sort of the playbook for tobacco litigation,” Gottlieb said. The settlement shows that “perhaps there is a new strategy afoot in terms of dealing with some of these types of cases.”
Callahan said the case involved unique circumstances because it was a settlement offer made before Altria acquired the company.
“And we have no intention of settling cases like this in the future,” he said.
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