Opinion ID: 534798
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: was there sufficient evidence to support a jury

Text: 185 FINDING THAT MRS. CIPOLLONE'S INJURY WAS CAUSED BY 186 LIGGETT'S BREACH OF EXPRESS WARRANTY? 187 Liggett contends that it is entitled to judgment n.o.v. on the express warranty claim because the record contains insufficient evidence to support a jury verdict for Mr. Cipollone on this point. At the outset, we note that the express warranty provision of the Uniform Commercial Code, section 2-313, makes clear that no formality or magic words are required to create an express warranty. It is not necessary to the creation of an express warranty that the seller use formal words such as 'warrant' or 'guarantee' or that he have a specific intention to make a warranty.... N.J.S.A. Sec. 12A:2-313(2) (1970). The seller may be liable if its representation regarding the goods takes the form of newspaper, magazine, radio or television advertisements. See Collins v. Uniroyal, Inc., 126 N.J.Super. 401, 405, 315 A.2d 30, 33 (App.Div.1973) (per curiam), aff'd, 64 N.J. 260, 315 A.2d 16 (1974) (per curiam); Drayton v. Jiffee Chemical Corp., 591 F.2d 352, 358 (6th Cir.1978); J. White & R. Summers, Uniform Commercial Code 335-36 (2d ed. 1980). Consequently, Mr. Cipollone was free to rely, as he did, on advertisements to prove the existence and scope of Liggett's warranty. 42
188 Liggett contends that the record contains insufficient evidence to support a finding that Liggett breached any warranty in the instant case. More specifically, Liggett maintains that there is insufficient evidence to support a finding that Liggett made any express warranty warranting against serious health effects in the future from long term cigarette use. Liggett Br. at 34-35. Although the question whether a particular set of representations made by the seller amounts to an express warranty is normally one of fact, and consequently for the jury to decide, see Gladden v. Cadillac Motor Car Division, 83 N.J. 320, 325, 416 A.2d 394, 396 (1980), a judgment n.o.v. may be granted under Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b) if the record is  ' critically deficient of that minimum quantity of evidence from which a jury might reasonably afford relief. '  Powell v. J.T. Posey Co., 766 F.2d 131, 133-34 (3d Cir.1985) (citations omitted). This question is one of law, over which our review is plenary. See id. at 134. 189 Many Chesterfield and L & M advertisements were submitted to the jury. Liggett contends that [n]one of them could constitute to a reasonable person a warranty covering serious health effects in the future from long term use of cigarettes. Liggett's Br. at 35. We disagree. 190 One Chesterfield advertisement stated, without qualification, that NOSE, THROAT, and Accessory Organs [are] not Adversely Affected by Smoking Chesterfields. See supra at 548. The advertisement discussed a study by a competent medical specialist and his staff on the effects of smoking Chesterfield cigarettes on a study group that included men and women who had continually smoked 10 to 40 cigarettes per day for one to thirty years. Members of the study group were given a thorough examination, including X-ray pictures at the beginning and at the end of a six-month[] period. According to the advertisement, [t]he medical specialist, after a thorough examination of every member of the group, concluded that the ears, nose, throat and accessory organs of all participating subjects examined ... were not adversely affected in the six-month period by smoking the cigarettes provided. 191 In a radio commercial, Arthur Godfrey related the story of another of these six-month[ ] period studies involving thirty-year chain smokers and stated that the study was proof of the proposition that Chesterfield cigarettes never ... did you any harm. See supra at 549. Mr. Godfrey also told his listeners that he could not remember ever seeing a gravestone stating that the buried individual had [s]moked [t]oo [m]uch. See supra note 2. One magazine advertisement declared in a bold typescript that the consumer should PLAY SAFE and Smoke Chesterfield. See supra at 548. A series of television and magazine advertisements for the L & M brand stated that the cigarettes were just what the doctor ordered. See supra at 550. 192 We hold that a reasonable jury could conclude from these advertisements, and the many others entered into evidence, that Liggett had represented to the consumer that the long-term smoking of Chesterfield or L & M cigarettes would not endanger the consumer's health, and that these warranties were untrue. Liggett cannot be granted judgment n.o.v. on the ground that the advertisements represented only that short-term smoking was safe. A reasonable jury could infer that an unqualified representation that smoking is safe creates a warranty that smoking for a long period of time is safe. 193 Furthermore, several of the purported studies conducted by medical specialists from a responsible consulting organization involved smokers who, the advertisements took care to note, smoked heavily for up to thirty years. A reasonable jury could interpret the inclusion of persons who had smoked heavily for thirty years in the studies as representing that smoking for a long period of time was safe. [B]road general assertions of quality, and particularly those of safety, as for example that ... cigarettes are ... 'harmless' or 'safe to smoke,' may readily be found by the jury to include a representation that there is nothing to make the product unsafe. W. Prosser, Handbook of the Law of Torts 653 (4th ed. 1971). Indeed, the last time we reviewed the Liggett advertisements at issue in this case, we concluded that [t]he evidence compellingly points to an express warranty, for the defendant, by means of various advertising media, not only repeatedly assured [the consumer] that smoking Chesterfields was absolutely harmless, but in addition the jury could very well have concluded that there were express assurances of no harmful effect on the lungs. Pritchard v. Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co., 295 F.2d 292, 296 (3d Cir.1961). The district court did not err in refusing to grant judgment n.o.v. on the ground that Mr. Cipollone failed to introduce sufficient evidence to uphold the jury verdict with respect to the scope of Liggett's express warranty.
194 Neither do we find, as Liggett contends, that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Mrs. Cipollone's smoking caused her cancer. In its opinion denying Liggett's motion for a judgment n.o.v., the district court concluded that Liggett's no adverse effects Chesterfield advertisements began to run in 1952, see 693 F.Supp. at 214 & n. 8, a conclusion supported by the evidence discussed above and which the plaintiff has not challenged in its brief. The evidence also supports the conclusion that the L & M just what the doctor ordered advertisements began before Mrs. Cipollone switched to that brand in 1955. Hence the jury could have found that Mrs. Cipollone smoked cigarettes that were in breach of warranty from 1952 until as late as 1966 (the date at which the express warranty claim is cut off by our interlocutory preemption decision). 195 The jury found that Mrs. Cipollone's smoking of cigarettes that were in breach of the warranty proximately caused her lung cancer and death. See Special Verdict Question 15 (quoted supra at 554). Liggett contends that the record does not contain sufficient evidence to support this finding and that the district court consequently erred in declining to grant judgment n.o.v. on this point. Although a great deal of evidence was introduced that Mrs. Cipollone's cancer was caused by her 40 years of smoking, Liggett contends that there is no evidence that demonstrates that her cancer was caused by her smoking from the years 1952 to 1966. We disagree. As previously noted, a judgment n.o.v. may be granted only if the record is  ' critically deficient of that minimum quantity of evidence from which a jury might reasonably afford relief. '  Powell, 766 F.2d at 133-34 (citations omitted). 196 The statistical correlation between heavy smoking and lung cancer is well-documented. 43 The plaintiff presented expert testimony from qualified witnesses that smokers are much more likely to contract lung cancer than non-smokers, especially non-smokers such as Mrs. Cipollone, for whom there is no evidence of exposure to any cancer causing agent other than cigarette smoke. In addition, these experts testified that Mrs. Cipollone's early years of smoking contributed more--on a year-to-year basis--than her later years of smoking because the lung injury produced from smoking early on is an injury that has many more years of potential to develop cancer than the injury incurred later in life. 197 The district court instructed the jury that it could find proximate cause in a case in which [t]here may be two or more concurrent and directly cooperative and efficient proximate causes of an injury if the defendant was a substantial contributing factor in [causing the plaintiff's] injuries. As we have explained, these instructions were correct. Under these instructions, the jury could have reasonably concluded from the foregoing evidence that Mrs. Cipollone's smoking from 1952 to 1966 proximately caused her lung cancer. Her smoking from 1952 to 1966 could clearly have been found to be a substantial contributing factor in the development of her lung cancer. Liggett has not challenged the jury instructions' definition of proximate cause on appeal with respect to the express warranty claim. 198 Mr. Cipollone presented sufficient evidence concerning the causal link between Mrs. Cipollone's lung cancer and her smoking between 1952 and 1966 that a grant of judgment n.o.v. on this issue under Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b) would not have been appropriate.