The Kansas City Star reported Aug. 29 that Missouri Court of Appeals Judge Victor Howard ordered the tobacco companies to pay longtime smoker Michael S. Thompson in his negligence and product-liability case; the firms also were told to compensate Thompson's wife for loss of companionship.

Thompson, who now breathes through a hole in his throat and speaks through an electronic voice box, was awarded $1.5 million in damages by a Jackson County jury in 2003, and his wife was awarded $500,000. But the jury said Thompson was half at fault in the case, so the total award was trimmed to $1 million.

Ken McClain, the lawyer for the Thompsons, called the decision "a complete rejection of the tobacco companies' position asserted in cases not only in Missouri, but all over the country. It is a landmark ruling on matters of critical importance to those who have been lied to for decades by the tobacco companies."

The appeals court, in rejecting tobacco-industry arguments about Missouri's product-liability law, held that "a product's design is deemed defective when a preponderance of evidence shows that the design renders the product unreasonably dangerous."

The trial featured expert testimony from famed tobacco-industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, who testified that the industry viewed itself as being in the business of delivering nicotine to addicted smokers, and added ammonia to cigarettes because it boosted the effects of nicotine.