Big Tobacco Loses Big

[Madeline]

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. must pay $80 million to the daughter of a man who died of lung cancer 60 years after he started smoking as a teenager in the 1930s, a jury in Florida ruled.

The jury in Levy County yesterday awarded $8 million in compensatory damages and $72 million in punitive damages to Dianne Webb, the adult daughter of James Cayce Horner, who died at the age of 78 in 1996, according to court records and a statement from the law firm that won the case, Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley.

The case is Dianne Webb v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 382009CA001285, Florida Circuit Court (Levy County).

The verdict comes four days after a Miami-Dade County jury decided in favor of Altria’s Philip Morris USA. That verdict was the eighth courtroom victory for tobacco companies in Florida since the end of August, Philip Morris said in a statement. The industry faces thousands of smoker-liability cases in Florida because of a decision by the state’s Supreme Court.

Since February 2009, jurors in Florida have awarded than $310 million to smokers and their families. The plaintiffs in the cases sued after the Florida Supreme Court decertified a statewide smokers’ class action in 2006, Gustafson said.

R.J. Reynolds Ordered to Pay $80 Million by Jury - BusinessWeek

Florida has some liability law most other states do not have. As a rule, to hold a defendant liable for damages you must prove that the product they manufacture caused the harm. To get the state's own Tobacco Litigation moved forward, the Florida legislature adopted an alternative theory: you need merely prove the defendant's market share of all similar products, not that its products actually caused the harm. (I do not know whether all the states involved in the Tobacco Litigation enacted such laws; they may have....but Florida has always been the focus of analysis of this emerging law.)

Before you applaud this and declare the tobacco industry dead on its feet, most legal scholars believe that if the Florida Tobacco causation law is constitutional, it cannot be applied only to tobacco. So, a gun and ammo manufacturer could be made to pay (especially if sued by the states, seeking to recover health care costs for GSW victims) based on its market share without any evidence that its products were the agents of harm. Guns, pharmacuetical drugs, medical devices, "defective" cars, etc. Sky's the limit, IMO. It has not yet happened, to my knowledge, but it is virtually inevitable.....no law on liability and causation can be made to apply only to tobacco.

This seems to me to be industry-killing by civil litigation, with a ginormous pot of gold for the plaintiffs and their lawyers. Are we really better off if the assets of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. are liquidated and paid over to Dianne Webb and her lawyers, Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley? Will they employ as many people? Pay as much in taxes?

This makes even less sense to me than outright nationalization/condemnation the industry would make.

Your thoughts?

 

[Revere]

Congress will have to show the balls to nationalize, or outlaw tobacco first.

I guess they will have to sell lots more cigarettes to pay that settlement.

 

[uscitizen]

Damned red states and their tort reform.

 

[Revere]

How much will cars cost if you can sue the manufacturer any time you crash one?

 

[zzzz]

Did you mention that tobacco had won the previous 8 cases? The numbers sound big but I think that most of these large awards are reduced on appeal if not thrown out altogether.

More than 7,000 lawsuits claiming injuries and death due to smoking are pending in state and federal courts in Florida, the legacy of the state Supreme Court’s 2006 “Engle” ruling, which required jurors in future smoking cases to be bound by certain factual findings, including that tobacco companies sold cigarettes that were “defective” and “unreasonably dangerous.

A Streak is Broken: Plaintiff Wins $80 Million Tobacco Verdict in Florida - Law Blog - WSJ

Looking at this how could you relate this to guns? They are not defective, the people are.

 

[Madeline]

Congress will have to show the balls to nationalize, or outlaw tobacco first.

I guess they will have to sell lots more cigarettes to pay that settlement.

The government has a very schzoid attitude towards smoking, no doubt.

 

[Zoom-boing]

 

[Madeline]

Did you mention that tobacco had won the previous 8 cases? The numbers sound big but I think that most of these large awards are reduced on appeal if not thrown out altogether.

More than 7,000 lawsuits claiming injuries and death due to smoking are pending in state and federal courts in Florida, the legacy of the state Supreme Court’s 2006 “Engle” ruling, which required jurors in future smoking cases to be bound by certain factual findings, including that tobacco companies sold cigarettes that were “defective” and “unreasonably dangerous.

A Streak is Broken: Plaintiff Wins $80 Million Tobacco Verdict in Florida - Law Blog - WSJ

Looking at this how could you relate this to guns? They are not defective, the people are.

There are a raft of defects in gun and ammo design and distribution that might could render the industry vulnerable. My point is not that they are or will be tomorrow -- just that I dun expect this death-by-civil-litigtation routine to stop at tobacco.

 

[zzzz]

Did you mention that tobacco had won the previous 8 cases? The numbers sound big but I think that most of these large awards are reduced on appeal if not thrown out altogether.

More than 7,000 lawsuits claiming injuries and death due to smoking are pending in state and federal courts in Florida, the legacy of the state Supreme Court’s 2006 “Engle” ruling, which required jurors in future smoking cases to be bound by certain factual findings, including that tobacco companies sold cigarettes that were “defective” and “unreasonably dangerous.

A Streak is Broken: Plaintiff Wins $80 Million Tobacco Verdict in Florida - Law Blog - WSJ

Looking at this how could you relate this to guns? They are not defective, the people are.

There are a raft of defects in gun and ammo design and distribution that might could render the industry vulnerable. My point is not that they are or will be tomorrow -- just that I dun expect this death-by-civil-litigtation routine to stop at tobacco.

Too many lawyers looking for someone to sue.

 

[Madeline]

Did you mention that tobacco had won the previous 8 cases? The numbers sound big but I think that most of these large awards are reduced on appeal if not thrown out altogether.

A Streak is Broken: Plaintiff Wins $80 Million Tobacco Verdict in Florida - Law Blog - WSJ

Looking at this how could you relate this to guns? They are not defective, the people are.

There are a raft of defects in gun and ammo design and distribution that might could render the industry vulnerable. My point is not that they are or will be tomorrow -- just that I dun expect this death-by-civil-litigtation routine to stop at tobacco.

Too many lawyers looking for someone to sue.

Lawyers had fuck-all to do with this, zzzz. Florida needed cash and badly and the legislature did not want to risk their careers by raising taxes or cutting services, so they shang haied the assets of Big Tobacco -- and then promptly squandered them. You can thankies Jeb! Bush, former Florida governor, for this one.

 

[elvis]

I think Ill go light a cigar.

 

[zzzz]

There are a raft of defects in gun and ammo design and distribution that might could render the industry vulnerable. My point is not that they are or will be tomorrow -- just that I dun expect this death-by-civil-litigtation routine to stop at tobacco.

Too many lawyers looking for someone to sue.

Lawyers had fuck-all to do with this, zzzz. Florida needed cash and badly and the legislature did not want to risk their careers by raising taxes or cutting services, so they shang haied the assets of Big Tobacco -- and then promptly squandered them. You can thankies Jeb! Bush, former Florida governor, for this one.

Yes and who are your legislators??? Lawyers!!!

 

[Madeline]

Too many lawyers looking for someone to sue.

Lawyers had fuck-all to do with this, zzzz. Florida needed cash and badly and the legislature did not want to risk their careers by raising taxes or cutting services, so they shang haied the assets of Big Tobacco -- and then promptly squandered them. You can thankies Jeb! Bush, former Florida governor, for this one.

Yes and who are your legislators??? Lawyers!!!

In Florida? Are you serious?

Used car salesmen were considered sophisticated legislators, zzzz. Lawyers dun want to run for office....they want to l-o-b-b-y.

 

[zzzz]

Lawyers had fuck-all to do with this, zzzz. Florida needed cash and badly and the legislature did not want to risk their careers by raising taxes or cutting services, so they shang haied the assets of Big Tobacco -- and then promptly squandered them. You can thankies Jeb! Bush, former Florida governor, for this one.

Yes and who are your legislators??? Lawyers!!!

In Florida? Are you serious?

Used car salesmen were considered sophisticated legislators, zzzz. Lawyers dun want to run for office....they want to l-o-b-b-y.

I stand corrected.
26 of the 120 (22%) of the Florida house are lawyers
11 of the 40 (28%) of the state senate are lawyers
So roughly a quarter of both are occupied by lawyers which is a considerable bloc. I guess since the legislature does make law it is necessary to have some lawyers although they do have access to legal advice from the AG.

The image most of the public gets of lawyers is what they see on TV, the ads of lawyers seeking cases, from auto accidents to tobacco cases. And when the public reads or see these large awards and the amount of money the lawyers receive it portrays a greedy lot. Sure there are some greedy lawyers and unethical ones but there are a whole lot of good people out there who are lawyers and are unfairly portrayed. That is the problem with grouping people together, the innocent get hurt along with the guilty. We are all guilty of doing that from time to time and I was guilty of that here.

 

[Madeline]

No biggie, zzzz. But the apology was sure nice to read on USMB...they are scarce as hen's teeth around here.