The final witness in Warrick v. R.J. Reynolds was Dr. Jill Hayes, Ph.D., who was offered by the defense as an expert in addiction. According to Dr. Hayes, cigarette smokers can quit smoking even if addicted, and having difficulty quitting a behavior does not necessarily indicate an addiction, just as people dieting want to lose weight, but may eat too much anyway.

Plaintiff attorney Eric Block, in a lengthy cross-examination duel, challenged Dr. Hayes to disagree with the Surgeon General’s and DSM-IV 305.1′s characterizations of nicotine dependence, which she did, in part.

The defense then showed a series of news and public service announcements from the 1950s through the 1980s to demonstrate public awareness of the hazards of smoking.

The court remained in session late to complete the presentation of evidence, so that closings could begin on Monday.

CVN is webcasting the Warrick trial live, gavel-to-gavel.

Testimony completed and both sides rested this morning in Piendle v. R.J. Reynolds.

The defense questioned plaintiff Margaret Piendle about relationships she had had after Charlie Piendle’s death and her prior deposition testimony.

Judge Rosenberg advised the jury that closing arguments would begin at 8:30 am Monday morning, which is earlier than their normal start time.  There is a possibility that closings may be heard in a different, larger court room.

CVN is webcasting the Piendle trial live.

Court video on CVN lets legal professionals follow breaking events in litigation of interest, whether it be complex, billion-dollar mergers or simply the safety standards that apply in a given community.

Moreover, when a particular trial becomes newsworthy due to an unexpected result (for example, a $500M verdict in the Chanin v. Desert Shadow Endoscopy products liability case, or the $200M asbestos verdict against CertainTeed in Evans v. A.W. Chesterton), the availability of court video allows journalists, bar members, and the public to go back to the event and better understand what happened and how.

However, the availability of court video is so new that even most legal professionals are not aware of the many different ways that court video can be used both during and after trial, for practical, public, and educational purposes.

For example, CVN court video has been used by sick jurors who were unable to attend in person for a day or so, thus allowing the trial to continue without disruption or delay.

Court Video from CVN has also been used in closing argument by parties wishing to refresh the jury’s recollection of specific portions of in-court testimony with far more impact than could be achieved with the mere reading of a transcript or the display of text.

In fact, anyone who has seen CVN’s court video of Bill Gates’ deposition testimony in Comes v. Microsoft knows that juries will be at least as influenced  by a witness’s body language, demeanor, and emotional affect as by the actual words spoken, and in this respect transcripts can be much less accurate than video at capturing the events in question.

Court video’s educational uses of course abound, from including video in a traditional law school classroom setting, to a law firm’s senior partner watching portions of a trial from afar, and coaching the trial team each night.

Court video for trial preparation is a must-have litigation tool for many firms, whether they are considering the effectivess of a potential or opposing expert witness, or simply comparing how other attorneys have framed their opening statement in a prior, similar case.

During trial, court video brings together a virtual team of expert advisors and senior attorneys who can help guide a trial team confronted by any unexpected turn. In the war room, court video allows for rapid response. And virtual shadow jurors can provide real-time insight into the effectiveness of a direct or cross-examination.

Court video also allows for the possibility of reducing the cost of litigation, by allowing attorneys and clients to attend and monitor litigation with less travel and smaller in-court teams, which results in less courtroom crowding as well.

This improvement in judicial efficiency actually began long ago, with speaker-telephones in courts such as those used by CourtCall’s service, which allows telephonic appearances. However, the typical court video setup gathers sound from multiple high-quality microphones and lets the participant see what is going on in the courtroom, thus providing a far superior experience for remote participation.

Court video is still in its infancy, but many jurists and legal scholars are concluding that the presence of courtroom cameras is not merely to be tolerated, but actually improves the administration of justice.

And the historic concerns that witnesses or participants might be intimidated or otherwise affected by the presence of video cameras has been disproved by a mountain of empirical evidence drawn from the experience of dozens of states across the years. Florida, for example, has allowed video cameras in nearly all court proceedings for over thirty years to great public benefit and with no signficant adverse effects. And states like Kentucky are so familiar with court video that cameras are permanently installed in nearly all courtrooms by companies like JAVS. Kentucky has found that creating a permanent record of their trial proceedings by video is no more disruptive or intimidating to the participants than when a permanent record is created by a court reporter — which is to say, not intimidating at all.

CVN is proud to bring to the public the news and information that court video makes possible; proud to bring to law schools and all education instutitutions the learning benefits associated with court video (such as CVN’s video trial advocacy training library, developed with William & Mary Law School); and proud to bring to the bench and bar the improvements in efficiency and effectiveness resulting from court video that contribute to the continued improvement of what is rightly called the world’s best system of justice.

Greene v. Sonoma County, which involved claims that a county had inappropriately separated and sold the property of an elderly gay couple, settled for $600K. Santa Rosa’s local newspaper quoted the county’s lawyer as being confident that there was never any discrimination, but conceding that there were procedural errors in the sale of the property, and suggesting the dispute might have been avoided if the men had been able to legally marry.

CVN was approved to webcast the Greene v. Sonoma County trial live.

The defense took a complete victory in Scheer v. Ford. Plaintiff Patricia Scheer claimed that leg and neck injuries resulted from a design defect in the 1999 Mercury Mountaineer’s seat back.

According to plaintiff attorney Thomas Christensen, Ford “knowingly chose a design that allows the occupant to slide up the seat back into the back seat area, then slide forward under the seat belt into the dash area without restraint, causing severe injuries…”

“In this case, Ford claims  the seat acted exactly as Ford engineers knew it would. Not one piece of evidence showing that design has been shown to you…We haven’t seen any blueprints. We haven’t seen one letter from some Ford engineer saying, ‘I know — we’ll make this design this way.’ That’s because this is a post-injury design that Ford has come up with.”

“They did know it would break, however, because they’ve done a bunch of tests and knew that these seats break…those tests also the jury has not seen.”

“As a result of this so-called ‘good design,’ Patricia was severely injured, and in just the way that tests showed that the weak seat could be expected to injure her — that is, dumping her into the back seat, and then having her slide into the front seat. The dumping into the back seat causes her to be unable to control her vehicle and keep it from colliding with anything in front of her. The defendant could have prevented this from happening if it had chosen to put their stronger seat in the vehicle — a seat that they had.”

On Ford’s behalf, Snell & Wilmer’s Jay Schuttert claimed that the seat was not defectively designed, and in any case did not cause Ms. Scheer’s injuries. Mr. Schuttert reminded the jury that one of the expert witnesses had characterized the Mountaineer’s seat strength as “about average, middle of the road,” and it was three times stronger than the federal requirement.

According to Mr. Schuttert, the seat behaved as was reasonably expected. It did not break, snap or collapse — it yielded as it was designed to do. Mr. Schuttert pointed out that the plaintiff’s expert’s design philosophy, which would have called for much stronger seats, was at odds with the entire auto industry and the federal government.

Moreover, said Mr. Schuttert, the seat did not cause Ms. Scheer’s neck injury because she was not, in fact, thrown into the back seat, nor did she slide forward under the belt, as the plaintiff claimed. Instead, her neck injury and leg injuries resulted from the force of the impact, not the seat’s behavior. Finally, Ms. Scheer’s injuries resulting from the crash were “minor,” and she had “all kinds of degenerative injuries” that she was trying to pin on Ford.

“The last thing in the world Ms. Scheer would have wanted in this crash would have been a stiffer seat,” said Mr. Schuttert, “because it would have exposed her to additional and more serious injuries…and…any claim that Ford should have given a different or additional warning with the Mountaineer is sort of silly, since…after the crash Ms. Scheer just went out and bought another 1999 Mercury Mountaineer.” Mr. Schuttert concluded that if Ms. Scheer really thought the Mountaineer was defective she “would have avoided that product like the bubonic plague and bought something different.”

The jury found in favor of the defendant.

CVN webcast Scheer v. Ford live, gavel-to-gavel. Snell & Wilmer won another Ford defective seat case last year in Sorci v. Ford. In Wheeler v. Ford, Butler Wooten, and Fryhofer’s James Butler recovered $17M+ for injuries resulting from a Ford Explorer’s defective rear seat protection system. Watch all three cases on CVN.

Opening statement in Warrick v. RJ Reynolds by Shook Hardy Bacon’s Ken Reilly, on behalf of Philip Morris, reminded the jury that not all smokers get addicted, and addicted smokers can quit. Moreover, quitting smoking can prevent or reduce the effects of smoking-related illness.

Mr. Reilly also said that if you go back in time to the 50′s or 60′s or 70′s and look at all the millions of documents generated by Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, you can find documents that have bad ideas, proposals, suggestions, and statements that we would not embrace today. However, it would be the plaintiff’s burden of proof to show that any of those statements had an impact on Mrs. Warrick.

Mr. Reilly also advised the jury to consider carefully the evidence from Mrs. Warrick herself, and her family, who would know better than any generic expert witness why Mrs. Warrick smoked.

Representing RJ Reynolds, Womble Carlyle’s Jonathan Engram suggested that Mrs. Warrick did not die from lung cancer, but instead from a grossly enlarged heart with an arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat, which caused sudden cardiac arrest. Mrs. Warrick had a pacemaker implanted about seven months before she died.

CVN is webcasting the Eveline Warrick v. Reynolds & Philip Morris Engle tobacco trial live.

Piendle v. RJ Reynolds, the first Engle-progeny tobacco trial to be held in Palm Beach, Florida pits Searcy Denney’s Greg Barnhart, representing Charlie Piendle’s widow, Margaret Piendle, against Jones Day’s Peter Biersteker, on behalf of RJ Reynolds, and Shook Hardy Bacon’s Frank Kelly, on behalf of Philip Morris. CVN is webcasting live, gavel-to-gavel.

According to Mr. Barnhart, Charlie Piendle started smoking in 6th or 7th grade, in the early 1950′s. Piendle smoked two packs per day for 30 years.  In 1995, at age 54, he was diagnosed with cancer, and he died in 1996.

Mr. Barnhart said that in the 1950′s some studies were publicized linking lung cancer to smoking, which resulted in a serious sales decline. In response, according to Mr. Barnhart, the tobacco executives from various companies held an emergency Christmas Eve meeting at the Plaza Hotel in 1953, and “linked arms” to hire the best public relations firm they could — Hill & Knowlton — to undermine the perceived health threat.

“It’s fortunate for us,” one of the executives at the 1953 meeting allegedly said, “that cigarettes are a habit they can’t break,” Barnhart recounted. The executives set as their goal, said Barnhart, to assuage smokers’ anxiety, and came up with the Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers which was published in January 4, 1954, and “devised a plan that was carried out for the next 50 years.”

The plan, according to Barnhart, was to make it easy to start, make it as hard as possible to stop, and make it as easy as possible to start up again. ”What happens,” concluded Barnhart, “is that teenagers’ brains are not fully developed…if you start, as Charlie Piendle did, as a teenager or a very young teenager, you are more likely to become addicted because of the effect of nicotine on the young and immature brain.”

Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds,” said Barnhart, “kept [Charlie Piendle] smoking, they prolonged his smoking, they helped him become addicted, they kept him smoking at high levels, and they provided a psychological crutch so that Charlie, and all of the millions of Charlie’s around this country, would keep on smoking. They comported with what they planned to do in 1953, their brilliantly executed plan, you’ll find, when the evidence continues today, cigarette sales went up after 1953, they created doubt, and they made relapse so doggone easy.”

Representing RJ Reynolds, Peter Biersteker told the jury,“Nobody forced Mr. Piendle to smoke. Nobody tricked him…He called cigarettes ‘cancer sticks’…when…he started smoking…And everybody referred to cigarettes as ‘coffin nails…’

“Over the years, Mr. Piendle received thousands — thousands — of warnings, including the warnings that were on the packs, about the health risks of smoking, and despite knowing the health risks of smoking, Mr. Piendle, a former Marine, who was strong-willed, not weak, and pretty much did what he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it, enjoyed smoking, and he chose to smoke.”

“There will be no evidence that Mr. Piendle ever tried or wanted to quit in the 1950s and 1960s. You will hear about some New Year’s resolutions that Mr. and Mrs. Piendle made in the 1970s and in the 1980s. But the evidence will be that they weren’t that serious, and they weren’t even that memorable to Mrs. Piendle.

“The evidence will finally be, as you heard before, that in 1989 Mr. Piendle made a choice, and he just quit. He went cold turkey. And apart from being a little moody…he didn’t exhibit the other symptoms that people who are addicted experience when they quit. He just quit. He never picked up another cigarette, despite the fact that Mrs. Piendle was still smoking.”

Moreover, said Mr. Biersteker, “There will be no evidence that anything that RJ Reynolds or Philip Morris did or did not do — other than selling cigarettes, which is perfectly legal — caused him to start or kept him from quitting smoking…”

“In view of the evidence you will hear about Mr. Piendle’s disregard of the information he knew or that was readily available to him about the health risks of smoking, the evidence will be that Reynolds and Philip Morris should bear no, or at most a very small, portion of responsibility.”

Frank Kelly, on behalf of Philip Morris, explained a range of different definitions of what constitutes addiction. Mr. Kelly suggested that “Mr. Piendle was a very social guy, had a lot of friends. And many of those friends smoked. When he was with those friends, he smoked. When he was in situations where you couldn’t smoke — like in movies, restaurants, when he went on his long motorcycle rides — he didn’t need to smoke.”

“Mr. Piendle was never diagnosed as being addicted to nicotine and cigarettes. He never sought counseling to quit smoking at any time. He never complained to anybody that he was a nicotine-using addict. In fact, Mr. Piendle never complained to anybody about his inability to quit smoking. Because the evidence just isn’t there that he had an inability to quit smoking.”

CVN is providing a gavel-to-gavel, live webcast of Piendle v. RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris.

The Warrick v. RJ Reynolds tobacco trial is being webcast live by CVN.

Eveline Warrick started smoking at age 13 in 1949. She later suffered chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and eventually died of lung cancer.

According to Bob Shields, of Doffermyre Shields, the tobacco defendants made a knowing choice for over 50 years to engage in a massive campaign of denial and deceit about the hazards of smoking.

Mrs. Warrick accepted some responsibility for her smoking, said Shields. However, according to Mr. Shields, in order to judge Mrs. Warrick we have to go back to the time in which she smoked, and to understand the culture of that time, and to know what she knew then. She didn’t know that cigarette smoking was a health hazard, said Shields, but the defendants knew.

Shields explained that Mrs. Warrick tried to quit smoking for over a decade, in the 1990′s, after she contracted COPD in 1991, and she eventually quit in 2001. Nonetheless, lung cancer was diagnosed in 2009, and Mrs. Warrick died in February, 2010.

Watch CVN’s live webcast of Warrick v. RJ Reynolds.

CVN will provide a live webcast of Gillette v. OneBeacon Insurance, an insurance liability case involving environmental remediation costs and defense costs associated with groundwater contamination resulting from the release of solvents at a former Gillette manufacturing facility in Santa Monica, California.

The trial will be heard in Boston, before Hon. Judge Christine Roach. The defendants, OneBeacon Insurance, SPARTA Insurance, and Northern Assurance, like Gillette, are all headquartered in Massachusetts. The plaintiff claims coverage under primary comprehensive general liability, umbrella, and excess liability policies.

In the underlying claim, the California Regional Water Quality Control Board (CRWQCB) and the City of Santa Monica alleged that a PaperMate ball point pen factory located at 1681 26th St., in Santa Monica, released solvents during cleaning and degreasing operations that contaminated the Olympic Well Field, which is used as a source of drinking water by the City of Santa Monica.

In its complaint, Gillette claims to have submitted more than $14.5M in covered but unpaid defense, investigation, and indemnification costs, with additional costs anticipated.

CVN will webcast Gillette v. OneBeacon live.