Surprise Witness In Lung Cancer Suit

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29192, 30 April 1960, Page 13

Surprise Witness In Lung Cancer Suit

PITTSBURGH, April 28. A 1,250,000-dollar cancer suit against Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company today produced a surprise witness who testified that in the seven years he lived near the plaintiff he never saw him smoke a cigarette.

The witness, Charles F. Hodges, was called to refute the claim of Otto Pritchard, aged 61, a Pittsburgh carpenter, who said he contracted lung cancer by smoking cigarettes made by the defendant company. Hodges said he had lived only a few doors from Pritchard from 1944 to 1953. He said he could not recall seeing Pritchard smoke anything but cigars and pipes. Pritchard underwent an operation in 1953 for removal ot parts of a lung which he contends became cancerous because he smoked the company’s Chesterfield cigarettes for more than a quarter of a century. Hodges’s appearance caught counsel for the plaintiff by surprise. The witness said he had no intention of testifying in the case untU he was interviewed by a representative of the defendant company after the start of the trial three weeks ago. The president-elect of the American College of Chest Physicians, Dr. M. J. Flipse, testified at the fifteenth day of the trial yesterday that he doubted that

cigarette smoking was a "probable cause” of lung cancer. However, under cross-examina-tion the physician admitted he had "gained no great reputation in the cure of lung cancer." Dr. Flipse is chief consultant of chronic pulmonary disease at the university of Miami. Dr. Flipse also admitted under questioning that he had written many medical articles but "I have published nothing in the matter of cancer of the lung.” The physician said that when he found a case of suspected lung cancer he referred it to a chest surgeon rather than treat it himself. “The only known cure for the cancer today is to cut it out,” he said. Federal Judge John L. Miller yesterday denied a defence motion to dismiss the case. He told the tobacco firm to present its side of the case. The judge also dismissed claims for "punitive damages” against the flrm. He also dismissed "warranty” claims that said the company had used "deceitful” advertising in extolling the merits of the cigarettes.