Thomas E. Workman Jr.

Myrna Oliver / Los Angeles Times 23apr01

South Pasadena -- Thomas E. Workman Jr., a Los Angeles attorney who successfully defended R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in the first trial in the death of a cigarette smoker, died of emphysema Wednesday. He was 73.

In 1985, the longtime litigator won a 9-to-3 civil jury verdict for Reynolds in the smoking case in Santa Barbara Superior Court. Mr. Workman's courtroom opponent was the "king of torts," Melvin Belli, who represented the family of John Galbraith.

Belli argued that Galbraith, a three-pack-a-day smoker who died of heart disease, lung cancer and emphysema at age 69, had started smoking before cigarette packages carried health warnings, and that he was too addicted to stop by the time he learned of hazards.

Although many other similar cases were in various stages of litigation across the country in the mid-1980s, the Santa Barbara case was the first to go before a jury. The judge accused Belli of rushing the case to trial in order to reap nationwide "first-trial" publicity, but the trial proceeded.

Mr. Workman, himself a smoker of Reynolds-made Camel Lights, denied that Reynolds products were addictive or necessarily the cause of Galbraith's death,

citing his "long and terrible medical history" of tuberculosis, chronic ulcers, pulmonary fibrosis and heart disease.

"Nobody forced him to smoke; nobody put a gun to his head," Mr. Workman told the jury. "He smoked because he liked to and because he liked the taste. That's the reason anybody smokes."

A decade earlier, Mr. Workman had defended Standard Oil Co. and other companies against class-action consumer protection lawsuits, including false- advertising claims involving a gasoline additive's influence on pollution.

After Mr. Workman left the courtroom at age 65, he became vice president, secretary and general counsel for biotech giant Amgen Inc.

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