BEAUMONT, Texas (Reuters) - Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., the third-largest U.S. tobacco company, on Wednesday said a Texas jury found in its favor in a product liability lawsuit brought by the family of a smoker.

According to Brown & Williamson, a unit of British American Tobacco Plc, a Jefferson County district court jury sided with the company in the lawsuit brought by Jeannie Grinnell and the estate of her husband, Wiley Grinnell Jr., against the company, asserting that her husband died as a result of smoking the company's cigarettes from 1952 to 1985. The case was first brought in 1995 against the American Tobacco Co., to which Brown & Williamson is successor by merger. The plaintiffs had sought $10 million in compensatory damages and unspecified punitive damages, according to Salomon Smith Barney tobacco industry analyst Martin Feldman. Ten jurors voted in favor of the defendants and two voted in favor of the plaintiff, Feldman said. The court victory is the sixth straight win for the tobacco company since Jan. 1, Brown & Williamson noted in a press release. Louisville, Ky.-based Brown & Williamson makes such cigarette brands as Kool, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, GPC, Carlton, Capri and Misty.

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