Juries in Florida this week handed down two more verdicts in the thousands of lawsuits pending against tobacco companies.
In Broward County, a widow whose husband died in 2008 from chronic pulmonary disease was awarded $29.1 million, the Sun-Sentinel reports. A spokesman from R.J. Reynolds, the defendant and the country’s second-largest tobacco company, said the company plans to appeal Thursday’s verdict.
R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco companies face about 9,500 individual lawsuits in Florida after the state Supreme Court threw out a class action suit in 2006 but left open the possibility of individual lawsuits.
In Duval County, a jury found in favor of Philip Morris USA in a lawsuit brought by a family of a smoker. The verdict was reached despite allowing the jury to rely on the findings of the 2006 class action, known as the Engle case, that tobacco products caused lung cancer and are addictive. About 4,000 of the individual lawsuits that came out of the Engle case are on hold as federal courts examine the legality of relying on findings from the Engle case.
On Thursday, at the annual meeting of Altria Group, the parent company of Philip Morris, the company’s chief executive said he is confident that the cigarette maker will overcome the thousands of lawsuits it still faces.
“Litigation is part of this business,” Altria’s CEO said, when asked by a shareholder if the company would reconsider its practice of refusing to settle lawsuits, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Questions were also raised during the meeting about the company’s attempt to replace four members of a Food and Drug Administration panel looking at tobacco regulation. Altria requested the removal of the four members because they have been paid experts in lawsuits against tobacco companies. The FDA refused Altria’s request.
both my parents died of lung cancer and i’ve and 6 strokes.
i am in and out of the hosipital, with copd. i’m on oxygen to help me get air into my lungs,all because of smoking cigaretts. i thank GOD that i don’t smoke anymore cigaretts anymore! when i stopped smoking the damage was already done to my lungs.