"Tobacco firm to pay $23b in smoker’s Fla. lawsuit" by Jennifer Kay | Associated Press July 20, 2014
MIAMI — A Florida jury has imposed $23.6 billion in punitive damages against the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in a lawsuit filed by the widow of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer in 1996.
The case is one of thousands in Florida after the state high court in 2006 tossed out a $145 billion class-action verdict. That ruling also said smokers and their families need only prove addiction and smoking caused their illnesses or deaths.
Last year, Florida’s highest court affirmed that decision, which made it easier for sick smokers or their survivors to pursue lawsuits against tobacco companies without having to prove to the court again that Big Tobacco knowingly sold dangerous products and hid the hazards of cigarette smoking.
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‘‘The jury wanted to send a statement that tobacco cannot continue to lie to the American people and the American government about the addictiveness of and the deadly chemicals in their cigarettes,’’ said one of the woman’s attorneys, Christopher Chestnut.
I'm all for that me$$age.
Reynolds’ vice president and assistant general counsel, Jeffery Raborn, called the damages in Robinson’s case ‘‘grossly excessive and impermissible under state and constitutional law.’’
In June, the US Supreme Court turned away cigarette manufacturers’ appeals of more than $70 million in court judgments to Florida smokers.
Reynolds, Philip Morris USA Inc., and Lorillard Tobacco Co. had wanted the court to review cases in which smokers won large damage awards without having to prove that the companies sold a defective and dangerous product or hid the risks of smoking.
Related: The Insider
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