Baltimore jury awards $2 million to cancer victim
04/30/99
A Baltimore jury on Thursday evening awarded $2.2 million to a man who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1997 -- more than 35 years after he stopped smoking.
The plaintiff Charles Connor, 75, suffers from mesothelioma, a cancer specifically linked to asbestos. The verdict against Lorillard Inc., the manufacturer of Kent cigarettes, which used asbestos in its filters for four years in the 1950s, and Hollingsworth & Vose Co., which made the "Micronite" filters, is the largest in a series of lawsuits brought against both companies in the past decade. Lorillard's Kent is the only brand of cigarette that used asbestos in its filters. Ironically, the asbestos was added to filter out toxins. Lorillard had advertised the filters as ``the one cigarette that can show you proof of greater health protection.'' Connor said he smoked a pack of Kent cigarettes every day for eight years. The asbestos-containing ``Micronite'' filters were manufactured from 1952 until 1956.
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