001836P.pdf   08/06/2001  Henry W. Boerner  v.  Brown & Williamson
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  00-1836
   Eastern District of Arkansas   
   Civil case - torts. Claims for inadequate warnings on cigarette packs 
   after 1969 are preempted by the Public Health Cigarette Smoking 
   Act of 1969; with respect to plaintiff's pre-1969 claims, the district 
   court erred in finding that record established plaintiff's decedent would 
   not have heeded a more stringent warning and that a more stringent warning 
   would have been futile, and district court erred in granting summary 
   judgment on the inadequate warning claims because plaintiff created a 
   factual question whether an adequate warning would have been sufficiently 
   effective to overcome decedent's addiction and prevent her injury; under 
   Arkansas law, plaintiff can make a case for defective design without proof 
   of a safer alternative design, and plaintiff's evidence was sufficient 
   to allow claim for defective design to survive a motion for summary 
   judgment; cigarette manufacturer's public statements that they would 
   pursue public health research abut the dangers of cigarette smoking 
   did not create a legally enforceable duty as plaintiff failed to show 
   either that public health community owed him or decedent such a duty 
   or that such a duty could be assumed by the company's unilateral 
   public statements.