(The following story by Steve Ritea appeared on the Newsday website on July 25.)
NEW YORK — A federal judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the case of a former Long Island Rail Road conductor who contends he developed cancer after years of walking through smoke-filled cars before smoking was banned on the trains in 1988.
U.S. District Court Judge Leonard D. Wexler granted a mistrial request by the plaintiff’s lawyer, Diane Paolicelli, said Josiah Kharjie, Wexler’s courtroom deputy.
Kharjie said he did not know the reason for the mistrial and Paolicelli declined to elaborate.
An attorney for the railroad did not return phone calls and a railroad spokeswoman declined comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
A new trial date has been scheduled for Jan. 7, Paolicelli said.
Testimony began Monday in the trial, with the former conductor, David Hepburn of Miller Place, describing the countless hours he spent taking tickets in smoky cars before a panel of eight jurors at the federal courthouse in Central Islip.
Hepburn said he was exposed to smoke in the cars from the time he started on the railroad in 1974 up until 1988.
After that, he said, employee lounges and other work rooms often contained secondhand smoke.
Hepburn worked for the railroad until he was diagnosed with advanced head and neck cancer in 2002. He has not required any additional cancer treatment in recent years, Paolicelli said.
John A. Bonventre, a lawyer for the railroad, said earlier this week that smoking was legal in myriad public buildings statewide throughout the 1970s and 1980s and disputed Paolicelli’s claims of a solid link between secondhand smoke and Hepburn’s cancer.
Hepburn originally filed the suit in 2004, asking for $10 million in damages, although Paolicelli said outside court Monday they are not seeking a specific amount.