Jump to full article: Law.com, 2007-10-11
Author: Billy Shields / Daily Business Review
Intro: In a decision that could change the way future tobacco liability suits are brought in Florida, the 4th District Court of Appeal affirmed a Broward Circuit Court jury's award of $500,000 against Liggett Group but certified an additional question for the Florida Supreme Court to decide.
Joining the 4th DCA panel as an associate judge, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jacqueline Hogan Scola wrote that Broward Circuit Judge David Krathen erred when he allowed a jury to consider a claim that Liggett was negligent in continuing the manufacture of cigarettes. . . .
Edward L. Sweda, senior attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University in Boston, characterized the ruling as a victory.
Sweda said the ruling will provide “some guidance for plaintiffs’ attorneys bringing similar claims throughout Florida. Obviously they can concentrate on design defects.â€
The small victory the panel handed tobacco companies by not allowing manufacturer negligence claims did not bother Sweda’s organization.
“We would expect that the vast majority of lawsuits would not be brought solely on that one ground,†he said.
But the panel upheld the jury's verdict on the grounds the jurors properly considered a second design defect claim.
This, Scola noted, is an open question under Florida law, a question she certified for the Florida Supreme Court and one she also sought to answer herself in the opinion. "We find no case which holds that a plaintiff is required to show a safer alternative design in order to prevail on a strict liability design defect claim," she wrote.
Longtime smoker Beverly Davis sued Liggett in 2002, after she was diagnosed with lung cancer
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