Reynolds hit with record US$23b punitive damages by Florida jury
Print Edition
A FLORIDA jury has slammed the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co — the No. 2 cigarette maker in the US — with US$23.6 billion in punitive damages in a lawsuit filed by the widow of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer in 1996.
The case is one of thousands filed in Florida after the state Supreme Court in 2006 tossed out a US$145 billion class action verdict. That ruling also said smokers and their families need only prove addiction and that smoking caused their illnesses or deaths.
Last year, Florida’s highest court re-approved 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.
The damages a Pensacola jury awarded on Friday to Cynthia Robinson after a four-week trial come in addition to US$16.8 million in compensatory damages.
Robinson individually sued Reynolds in 2008 on behalf of her late husband, Michael Johnson Sr Johnson, a hotel shuttle bus driver who died of lung cancer in 1996 at age 36, smoked one to three packs a day for more 20 years, starting at age 13.
Robinson’s attorneys said the punitive damages are the largest of any individual case stemming from the original class action lawsuit. “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.
“He (Johnson) couldn’t quit. He was smoking the day he died,” Chestnut said.
Reynolds’ vice president and assistant general counsel, J. Jeffery Raborn, called the damages in Robinson’s case “grossly excessive and impermissible under state and constitutional law.”
“This verdict goes far beyond the realm of reasonableness and fairness, and is completely inconsistent with the evidence presented,” Raborn said in a statement. “We plan to file post-trial motions with the trial court promptly, and are confident that the court will follow the law and not allow this runaway verdict to stand.”
The lawsuit’s goal was to stop tobacco companies from targeting children and young people with their advertising, said Willie Gary, another attorney representing Robinson. “If we don’t get a dime, that’s OK, if we can make a difference and save some lives,” Gary said.
The verdict comes the same week that Reynolds American Inc, which owns RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company, announced it was purchasing Lorillard Tobacco Co, the country’s No. 3 cigarette maker, in a US$25 billion deal. That would create a tobacco company second only in the US to Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc., which owns Philip Morris USA Inc. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2015.
In June, the US Supreme Court turned away cigarette manufacturers’ appeals of more than US$70 million in court judgments to Florida smokers.
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