Tobacco Jurors Told Not To See Film
11/04/99
MIAMI (AP) -- The jurors in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the tobacco industry were ordered Thursday not to see the new movie ``The Insider,'' about a cigarette company executive who becomes a whiste-blower.
The movie, starring Al Pacino, is based on the true story of former Brown & Williamson executive Jeffrey Wigand, who agreed to go on ``60 Minutes'' in 1995 and say the company knew of the dangers of smoking.
B&W attorney Gordon Smith asked the judge to bar jurors from seeing the movie. He said the movie, which portrarys Wigand as a hero, is a ``fictionalized'' account.
The class-action lawsuit against the nation's top cigarette manufacturers was filed on behalf of an estimated 500,000 sick Florida smokers.
The six-member jury ruled in July that cigarettes are deadly and that the industry had engaged in ``extreme and outrageous conduct.'' The jury now must determine how much the tobacco companies should pay in damages.
The industry has warned that it could be hit with a ruinous verdict of perhaps $300 billion.
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