Opening statements in the damages phase of the landmark trial got under way this morning after hours of closed-door meetings between the attorneys and the trial judge. An industry attorney and analysts have predicted that a lump-sum verdict could approach $300 billion, which would cripple the embattled industry. ``It's always easy to assume that tobacco is down,'' said Martin Feldman, a tobacco analyst with Salomon Smith Barney in New York. ``Very often it bounces back with either a successful appeal or with a strategy that hadn't been considered previously.'' An estimated 500,000 sick Florida smokers and their relatives won the first phase of the first class-action lawsuit by smokers to reach trial when jurors found that the industry had engaged in ``extreme and outrageous conduct'' regarding its product.

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