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Practice Areas: Civil Litigation, Products Liability Defense

Additional Information: Mark Belasic has represented clients in complex product liability actions in state and federal courts around the country. Since the 1980s, he has been part of the Firm's team representing R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in scores of individual and class action cases. He has also represented clients in lawsuits in which industrial machinery, furnaces, and shop tools were alleged to be defective. These cases have involved a wide variety of product liability and intentional tort claims, including design and manufacturing defect, failure to warn, fraud, breach of warranty, consumer protection, and conspiracy claims. Mark was trial counsel for R.J. Reynolds in Gilboy, a lung cancer claim in which Reynolds won a jury verdict in state court in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He also argued and won a directed verdict on several claims before the jury verdict for defendants.

Mark has many years of experience defending class action lawsuits in multiple state and federal jurisdictions. He has been the lead attorney or a principal attorney for R.J. Reynolds in more than 20 cases in which defendants successfully resisted plaintiffs' attempts to certify a class.

Mark has substantial experience in defending medical monitoring claims. In particular, he was lead counsel for R.J. Reynolds in Barnes v. American Tobacco Co., the first case in which certification of a medical monitoring class action reached a federal appellate court. In Barnes, defendants succeeded in having the trial court decertify the class and won summary judgment on a multibillion dollar medical monitoring claim, orders which were affirmed by the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals. He also represented Reynolds in the landmark Castano litigation, in which the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decertified a nationwide class action encompassing tens of millions of putative class members.

Mark was lead trial counsel for R.J. Reynolds in Scott, a multibillion dollar medical monitoring class action tried in New Orleans Civil District Court. The trial lasted nearly three years from 2001 to 2004, and an appeal of the only claim won by plaintiffs is ongoing. Plaintiffs sought a $10 billion medical monitoring fund to cover a wide variety of diagnostic tests for cancer, heart disease, and respiratory ailments. In a sweeping victory on the medical monitoring claim, the jury found in defendants' favor on every medical test sought by plaintiffs. Defendants also won a defense verdict on each of plaintiffs' claims for product defect, with the jury finding that cigarettes were not a defective product.

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Firm Members: Stephen Kaczynski Kenneth Adamo Richard Whitney Robert Canala Dennis Murphy Amanda Jones Thomas Demitrack Arthur Licygiewicz Mark Belasic James Cone Christos Georgalis Theodore Grossman Jeffrey Ubersax James Wooley