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Florida justices reject product liability appeal  

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday let stand a Broward County smoker's $545,000 award in a tobacco case that also may affect liability claims for a broad range of other "inherently dangerous" products.

Those items can range from guns, knives, motorcycles and personal watercraft to less obvious products such as gasoline and sugar.

A jury found the design of Chesterfield cigarettes was flawed when it returned a verdict for Beverly Davis, who had smoked the brand for more than 20 years before contracting lung cancer. She died during the litigation, but her family continued the case.

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• LIGGETT v. DAVIS (PDF) 

We initially accepted jurisdiction to review Liggett Group, Inc. v. Davis, 973 So. 2d 467 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007), a decision in which the Fourth District Court of Appeal certified two questions to be of great public importance. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. However, upon further consideration, we have determined that we should exercise our discretion to discharge jurisdiction. Accordingly, this review proceeding is dismissed.

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Florida Supreme Court Case Docket: LIGGETT GROUP, INC. vs. SCOTT DAVIS, ETC.  

11/06/2008

ORAL ARGUMENT HELD

12/11/2008

DISP-REV DISM IMPROVIDENTLY GRANTED (OA)

We initially accepted jurisdiction to review Liggett Group, Inc. v. Davis, 973 So. 2d 467 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007), a decision in which the Fourth District Court of Appeal certified two questions to be of great public importance. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. However, upon further consideration, we have determined that we should exercise our discretion to discharge jurisdiction. Accordingly, this review proceeding is dismissed. NO MOTION FOR REHEARING WILL BE ALLOWED.

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Fla. cigarette case could affect other products 

A tobacco lawyer asked the Florida Supreme Court to reverse a $545,000 product liability verdict Thursday because the ailing smoker who won the judgment wasn't required to prove the company could have made a safer cigarette.

It's a case that could serve as a precedent affecting other smokers and a broad range of what have been legally classified as "inherently dangerous" products, said Alvin B. Davis, representing cigarette maker Liggett Group Inc.

"Products many Floridians enjoy, such as convertible automobiles, motorcycles, personal watercraft, and a cold beer on a hot day could all be legally condemned," lawyers for several business groups wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief.

The 4th District Court of Appeal certified the issue to the Supreme Court as a question of great public importance.

A three-judge appellate panel unanimously said there's no requirement for an injured party to establish an alternative safer design in a ruling that upheld the verdict won by a Broward County woman. . . .

Unless injured parties are required to prove an alternative design would be safer, manufacturers can be required to pay damages whether or not they did anything wrong, Alvin Davis argued.

"Cigarettes are unreasonably dangerous, and we don't dispute that," he said after the hearing. "The question is whether that alone is a sufficient basis to hold the manufacturer liable."

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Cigarettes are unreasonably dangerous, and we don't dispute that. The question is whether that alone is a sufficient basis to hold the manufacturer liable.
Tobacco lawyer Alvin Davis, after a hearing in the Beverly Davis [no relation] case.

• $500,000 Award Upheld Against Liggett Group 

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.”

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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• Brooklyn Tobacco Trial Delayed as Appeals Court Reviews Rulings 

Opening statements, scheduled to begin today in a New York state court in Brooklyn, were postponed so an appellate court can review a judge's rejections of motions for summary judgment in the case.

Judge Herbert Kramer, who sent the jurors home until Oct. 2, also threw out several of the Davis family's claims against Philip Morris, including allegations that implied and express warranties were breached, said company spokesman Michael York. Kramer didn't dismiss those charges against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc., York said. . .

Davis was 50 when he died in 1996. Lawyers for his family say the tobacco companies are liable because they committed fraud and designed a faulty product.

Cigarette makers claim the illnesses could have been caused by something other than cigarettes and that Davis was aware of the health risks of smoking.

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• Tobacco Companies Ready Defense in Brooklyn Trial (Update1) 

Philip Morris Cos. and other U.S. cigarette makers are scheduled to begin defending themselves Monday in a Brooklyn courtroom from charges that their products caused a long-time smoker's fatal illnesses.

The case brought by the family of Jeffrey Davis, who was 50 when he died in 1996, is the latest in a string of lawsuits across the country that have sought to hold tobacco companies liable for the illnesses of individual smokers.

Tobacco companies have enjoyed overwhelming success in these individual smokers' lawsuits . . .

``The individual cases are the price of doing business -- a nuisance,'' said Bonnie Herzog . . .

The latest Brooklyn trial will be an encore performance for the Davis family's attorney Leonard Fitz, who argued the case that failed in June. Presiding over the trial will be Judge Herbert Kramer, who also handled the earlier case.

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The individual [tobacco liability] cases are the price of doing business -- a nuisance.
Bonnie Herzog, an analyst with Credit Suisse First Boston. McQuillen, W.<I>Tobacco Companies Ready Defense in Brooklyn Trial (Update1)</I>

New Mexico woman sues over cigarette claims 

A woman who switched to an additive-free brand of cigarettes because she thought they were less harmful to her health filed suit against the cigarette's manufacturer as well as R.J. Reynolds Tobacco (NYSE:RJR - news) after developing lung cancer, her lawyers said on Friday.

In New Mexico's first lawsuit filed by an individual against tobacco companies, Juanell Davis, 57, asked for damages from privately owned Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company and R.J. Reynolds, which makes the Winston brand she smoked previously. . . ``If I had any idea that this addiction was going to be so controlling, strong and permanent, I never would have smoked my first cigarette,'' Davis said in a statement released by Rhett Klok with Branch Law Firm of Albuquerque.

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American Spirit is marketing to make consumers believe their product is better for them, more natural as it were. . . The truth of the matter is that they are little different than other tobacco companies.
Lawyer Rhett Klok, who is representing Juanell Davis in the first individual suit against Santa Fe Natural Tobacco. Quoted in <i>New Mexico woman sues over cigarette claims</i>