The State - News from Dec. 26, 1985

A lawsuit filed against R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. by a woman who blamed cigarette smoking and asbestos exposure for her husband’s death has been dropped. Flora Mae Browner of Pittsburg said her attorney decided to drop the suit in Contra Costa County Superior Court because doctors could not confirm that lung cancer was the cause for the death of her husband, Harold, in January, 1978. George Kilbourne, her attorney, said the case was similar to the John Galbraith trial in Santa Barbara, where a jury rejected the claim that R. J. Reynolds was responsible for Galbraith’s death from heart disease, lung cancer and other ailments.