Florida Still Popular State for Tobacco Lawsuits

Florida continues to be a popular state for people to base their lawsuits against the tobacco industry, according to CBS MoneyWatch. The tobacco industry faces thousands of legal challenges in the state.

Recently, the family of a deceased Air Force veteran who died of lung cancer at age 50 won a $34 million verdict against R.J. Reynolds in Pensacola, Florida. The case was known as an “Engle Progeny” case, named after a class action lawsuit brought by Florida smokers against the tobacco industry in 1994.

In 2000, a Florida judge ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor in the Engle case, and awarded $145 billion in damages. It was one of the largest awards in history. Only those who got sick before November 1996 qualified.

In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court tossed out the award, calling it excessive. The court said that although it decertified the case, the factual findings made by the jury would be binding in future smoking cases in Florida. This meant jurors in future cases would have to accept that tobacco makers had misled smokers about the dangers of cigarettes. The result was thousands of lawsuits in Florida courts. About 3,100 Engle cases are pending in Florida state courts, while others are being tried on the federal level, the article notes.

Although the companies appealed the Florida Supreme Court ruling on factual findings, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the case.

Under the Engle decision, individual smokers can file their own lawsuits, and do not have to prove anything about tobacco companies’ actions. They do have to demonstrate they, or their deceased relatives, were addicted to smoking, were unable to quit and that cigarettes caused illness or death.

Before Engle, tobacco companies generally won lawsuits because it was too difficult to prove cigarettes caused a particular illness, or juries decided smokers should be responsible for their decision to use cigarettes.