A federal jury in Bridgeport, Conn., awarded $8 million to a smoker and larynx-cancer patient in a case against R.J. Reynolds, the Associated Press reported May 27. The jury award against a major tobacco company was the first of its kind in New England.

Barbara Izzarelli, who smoked Salem cigarettes from the age of 12 onward, argued that cigarettes were dangerous, defectively designed, and purposefully targeted at minors by R.J. Reynolds in the early 1970s to get them addicted. Izzarelli had her larynx removed in 1997, at age 36.

The jury totaled damages at $14 million, but split responsibility between Reynolds (58 percent) and Izzarelli (42 percent). This reduced her compensation to $8.07 million; a judge will decide punitive damages next month, which could bring the amount of the award as high as $24 million.