Edward Caprio v. Philip Morris, et al. 

Fort Lauderdale—As trial opened Wednesday, Edward Caprio's lawyer, Steven Hammer, told jurors how he believed an addiction to nicotine, not a choice to smoke, left his client tied to an oxygen tank and unable to successfully quit cigarettes until last month, years after he had been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 

"It's been said that silence is golden, but for Ed (Caprio), when he's sleeping, if this (Oxygen) machine shuts down, and becomes silent, it's a death sentence," Hammer said. "Nobody chooses to be strapped to an oxygen machine. Nobody chooses to walk around with a walker, strapped to an oxygen tank," Hammer, of the Law Offices of Sheldon J. Schlesinger, said. 

Caprio 72, is suing Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard and the Liggett Group, makers of the cigarettes he claims led to his COPD and eventual lung cancer. Caprio claims he began smoking when he was 15, and argues that his nicotine addiction was so powerful that he was unable to completely give up smoking, even after being diagnosed with COPD in 1996 and subsequent lung cancer.

Hammer told jurors that Caprio's nicotine addiction was fueled by tobacco industry's "engineering" of cigarettes and its concealment of smoking's dangers in order to maintain and increase market share. "If you don't sustain that addiction, you lose customers," Hammer said. "And that's what's important to these companies, their customers. Not the health of the customers, but the money of the customers."

However, Philip Morris attorney Walter Cofer, of Shook Hardy Bacon, countered that Caprio successfully stopped smoking decades ago, when he went without cigarettes for six months during the 1980s. Cofer told jurors Thursday that the six-month period was more than enough time to move through the typical nicotine withdrawal period. Cofer told jurors that Caprio's decision to resume smoking was based on a choice and that it was that decision that led to his lung cancer and COPD. "How would things be different if in the 1980s, when Mr. Caprio... went without smoking for six months, (he'd) stayed quit? The answer is simple: we wouldn't be here," Cofer said. 

Neither the parties' attorneys nor tobacco company representatives could be reached for comment. 

Coming next week: Caprio's attorneys will move into the central issues of their case. 

Aquatic rescue expert Clay Ingle criticized the rescue procedures used to attempt to free powerboat racing champion Joey Gratton from his boat after its 2011 crash in a race overseen by Super Boat International Productions, Inc.Gratton's widow, Priscilla Gratton, settled her wrongful death suit against with Super Boat International. 

Fort Lauderdale, FL –The widow of drowned champion powerboat racer Joey Gratton reached a settlement in her wrongful death case against Super Boat International Productions, Inc., the organizers of a Key West race in which Gratton drowned. Details of the settlement were not made public and attorneys could not be reached for comment. Priscilla Gratton v. Donald DiPetrillo et al, CACE 12004442.

Priscilla Gratton alleged that race organizers negligently failed to ensure that properly trained rescue divers were on hand and did not immediately stop the 2011 race following an accident that caused his boat to flip. The defense contended that the death resulted from mechanical problems that prevented the rescue divers from extricating Gratton from the capsized boat in time.

The settlement came January 16, after the jury heard two and a-half days of testimony from various witnesses, including Michael Haugh and Steven Lang, the two divers who attempted to rescue Gratton. The last witness to testify was Gratton’s expert Clay Ingle, chief of a Chattanooga, TN, rescue service who had personally performed over 150 similar rescues of trapped boaters in his career.

Ingle characterized the use of civilians Haugh and Lang as primary rescuers, instead of trained professionals, as “way below” acceptable national standards for the type of race in which Gratton died. He explained: “The fact that [Haugh] wasn’t trained properly … he wasn’t a public safety diver, didn’t have the correct mindset … didn’t have the experience not to panic in a situation that’s deteriorating and not able to come up with an acceptable idea to correct problems that he was having; that’s the big negligence. This is horrible. This should never have happened because he was not properly trained.”

Ingle went on to testify that safely rescuing Gratton would have been simple for a properly trained professional. “There were so many mistakes made from the start; at any time a simple action could have solved this problem… If either one of them would have been trained appropriately they wouldn’t have panicked; they would have done what needed to be done; this would have been a simple rescue, no other way to say it.”

Ingle also said that divers in the rescue helicopter, which arrived at the accident scene before Haugh and Lang did, should have been the first ones to deploy. Further, the organizers’ failure to stop the race immediately after the accident made the rescue attempt more difficult.

When Gratton’s attorney Michael Allweis asked Ingle about specific actions taken by Haugh and Lang, Ingle criticized their leaving Gratton in the water and giving an “OK” sign to other rescuers while the racer was still in the boat. At the very least, Ingle said a diver should have remained with Gratton and made sure he could breathe, sharing the air from the diver’s own tank if needed.

On cross examination by William Milliken, Ingle acknowledged that various boating organizations had different safety standards and that he had no actual knowledge as to how much training Haugh and Lang had received. Ingle said, “If I didn’t witness it or I didn’t see the [certification] paper on it, I can’t testify someone’s been trained.”

Video coverage of the trial prior to its settlement is available on Courtroom View Network.

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