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A former smoker who just won a $300 million verdict in Florida against Philip Morris USA has pulled out of a news conference about the case.
Lawyers for 61-year-old Cindy Naugle will talk at the Friday news conference in Fort Lauderdale. But a spokesman for the attorneys said Naugle canceled plans to speak due to health reasons. Naugle has emphysema.
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A South Florida jury on Thursday ordered Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million to a former smoker, agreeing that the tobacco company's negligence was the cause of her emphysema.
The award for Cindy Naugle, 61, is the largest to date among thousands of lawsuits filed in the state against tobacco companies.
"Cindy admitted her fault to the jury," her attorney, Robert W. Kelley, said in a statement. "But Philip Morris refused to accept any responsibility for her emphysema, even though she was an addicted customer for 25 years." . . .
"Large verdicts encourage other large verdicts," said Richard A. Daynard, professor of law at Northeastern University and chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project. "I think Philip Morris has finally met its match in Florida. This gives jurors permission to fully compensate plaintiffs for all the harm they suffered and to express their moral outrage at the industry's behavior."
There are 8000 more suits pending, and now that it seems clear that PM will be hemorrhaging money, I anticipate a rush to the courthouse to collect before bankruptcy ensues. At $300 million per pop, that's over $2 Trillion dollars. How did the jury come up with this punitive award, given PM's incredible existing exposure?
Many states have never seen $56 million compensatory verdicts for one plaintiff.
When Cindy Naugle took the witness stand in her lawsuit against tobacco company Philip Morris USA, she toted an oxygen bottle and had to pause a few minutes to catch her breath.
Lawyers for the 61-year-old Naugle say her emphysema is so bad that she needs a lung transplant and can barely walk a few feet without being winded. The cause of her health problems, lawyers argued, was a 25-year smoking habit. Naugle's lawyers said the cigarette maker committed fraud. They said the tobacco company knew — but concealed — that smoking cigarettes is addictive and harmful to a person's health.
Jurors agreed. On Thursday, it took the Broward County panel less than three hours to order Philip Morris to pay Naugle $300 million. It is believed to be the largest award to date among the 7,000-plus lawsuits filed in Florida against tobacco companies.
"If the tobacco industry realizes what their ultimate potential exposure will be, maybe they will decide to do the right thing by these people," said Robert Kelley, the Fort Lauderdale attorney who represented Naugle.
Florida's never-ending tobacco litigation continued not to end this week. A woman in South Florida who smoked Benson & Hedges for 25 years sued Philip Morris and was awarded $300 million.
A key issue in the case was Naugle's contention that Philip Morris concealed the fact that smoking is addictive and harmful.
Here's a question:
Does this judgment sound fair?(online surveys)
(The question closes at 9 a.m. ET on Saturday.)
Edward L. Sweda, Jr., Senior Attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project (TPLP) at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, was delighted with the jury’s verdict. “Clearly, this jury recognized the outrageous and reprehensible misconduct by Philip Morris and appropriately expressed its outrage by awarding $244,000,000 in punitive damages. This jury went far beyond a slap on the wrists and, instead, hit Philip Morris hard in order to punish the company for its extraordinary wrongdoing and to deter Philip Morris and other tobacco companies from committing similar wrongdoing in the future,” Sweda said.
Mark Gottlieb, TPLP’s Director, noted that “trial lawyers should be encouraged by the success that plaintiffs in Florida have been able to achieve when juries have had the chance to review the evidence of cigarette makers’ astonishing misconduct.”
Thursday’s verdict was the tenth verdict this year in Engle progeny cases in Florida. 8 out of those 10 verdicts have been for the plaintiffs
Philip Morris USA said today it will seek further review of a jury verdict awarding approximately $56 million in compensatory damages and $244 million in punitive damages.
The verdict came in the trial of a so-called Engle case following a 2006 Supreme Court decision that decertified a class action but allowed former class members to file individual lawsuits.
"From the beginning, this case was marked by a fundamentally unfair and unconstitutional trial plan that allowed the jury to rely on findings by a prior jury that have no connection to the plaintiff," said Murray Garnick, Altria Client Services senior vice president and associate general counsel, speaking on behalf of Philip Morris USA.
"Today's verdict was the result of numerous erroneous rulings by the trial judge that allowed the jury to hear extensive evidence totally unrelated to the individual smoker
The sister of former Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle on Thursday won a $300 million jury verdict, the largest individual win in the Big Tobacco lawsuits in Florida.
Cindy Naugle, an office manager and bookkeeper at Layton's Garage in Fort Lauderdale, sued Philip Morris, owner of her cigarette brand of choice, Benson & Hedges.
Naugle was found only 10 percent at fault for taking up smoking when she was 20 years old. She quit 25 years later.
Her lawyers, Bob Kelley, Todd Falzone and Todd McPharlin of the Kelley Uustal law firm in Fort Lauderdale, argued that the cigarette maker committed fraud. They contended the tobacco company knew but concealed that smoking cigarettes is addictive and harmful to a smoker's health.
They said Naugle took up smoking in 1968, thinking it would make her look older and sophisticated. She chose the slim, long Benson & Hedges, marketed as sophisticated and feminine, they said.
Naugle, who is 60 now, has emphysema and labors to do the simplest tasks.
Altria Group Inc.’s Philip Morris USA, the largest U.S. tobacco company, lost a $300 million jury verdict in a lawsuit brought by a former smoker in Florida who suffers from emphysema.
The Broward Circuit Court jury yesterday awarded Cindy Naugle $56.6 million in compensatory damages and $244 million in punitive damages, said her lawyer, Robert W. Kelley, in a phone interview . . .
Altria, based in Richmond, Virginia, said it will seek “further review” of the verdict.
“From the beginning, this case was marked by a fundamentally unfair and unconstitutional trial plan that allowed the jury to rely on findings by a prior jury,” Murray Garnick, associate general counsel for Altria, said in a statement. The “verdict was the result of numerous erroneous rulings by the trial judge,” he said.
Judge Stan Griffis stays busy presiding over cases that involve family issues, probate and other non-felony civil matters, but he says it’s the foreclosures that keep him tied up these days.
“Foreclosures are a staggering portion of my docket,” Griffis told Williston Rotary members last week. . . .
he will hear suits filed by eight individuals against the tobacco industry.
Originally a class action suit that was tried in Miami, Griffis said the case was overturned by the State Supreme Court, which also declassified the lawsuit, putting it back into the hands of the individual plaintiffs.
Now those individuals have refiled the suits and they will be heard here.
What that means for Levy residents, Griffis said, is the high probability of being selected to be on the juries that hear the cases.
Each case is expected to last three weeks, the judge said, and senior judges will more than likely pick up his regular docket while he is occupied with the lengthy lawsuits.
While Levy County has eight such suits, Alachua has 70, he said.
Philip Morris USA announced on August 13 that it would appeal a Ft. Lauderdale jury verdict awarding $5.3 million in compensatory damages to the family of a former smoker.
The money was awarded to 92-year-old Leon Barbanell, the husband of a woman who smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for more than 40 years. Shirley started smoking when she was 16 and died from lung cancer in 1996 at 73. The widower's attorney, Jonathan Gdanski of the Law Offices of Sheldon J. Schlesinger in Fort Lauderdale, filed suit against Philip Morris alleging the tobacco company negligently concealed facts about the dangers of smoking.
The verdict is "the result of a severely prejudicial trial plan," said Murray Garnick, Altria Client Services senior vice president and associate general counsel, speaking on behalf of Philip Morris USA. "From beginning to end, this case was marked by legal rulings that should be reversed on appeal, including allowing this jury to rely almost exclusively on findings by a prior jury that have no direct connection with the plaintiff in this case." . . .
"There is mixed news for both sides in this case. The plaintiff recovered $5.3 million in damages, but will receive only $1.9 million, discounted by 63.5 percent because the plaintiff's deceased wife was found to have contributed that percentage of the damages by her own conduct in smoking," said Maureen Martin, senior fellow for legal affairs at the Heartland Institute. "The plaintiff's wife continued to smoke for more than 25 years after warning labels appeared on cigarette packages warning of health hazards. The jury rightfully should have found the plaintiff's deceased wife 100-percent liable."
A 92-year-old plaintiff was awarded more than $5.3 million in damages after a jury decided his then-73-year-old wife died of lung cancer caused by years of cigarette smoking manufactured by Phillip Morris.
The trial in Broward County Circuit Court pitted Leon Barbanell, the husband of Shirley Barbanell, against Philip Morris USA Inc. In Phase 1 of this trial, the jury decided cigarettes caused Ms. Barbanell's lung cancer and eventual death in 1996. After a day of deliberations in Phase 2, the jury awarded Leon Barbanell 5.3 million dollars in damages.
In December 2006 the Florida Supreme Court breathed new life into a case against the tobacco industry that had worked its way through the courts since 1994. The case is known as the Engle case.
The supreme court upheld a landmark jury verdict finding Big Tobacco liable for smoking-related injuries and deaths, but the court said that smokers and their loved ones must bring individual suits in order to prove that smoking harmed them and to prove their individual damages. If you have a right to bring one of these "individual Engle suits" then Levin Papantonio may be able to help you.
In addition to such lawsuits being brought, Big Tobacco has already created a fund containing hundreds of millions of dollars that we believe should be paid out to those harmed by smoking in addition to any damages smokers and their loved ones might prove in their individual lawsuits against Big Tobacco.
Levin Papantonio is in the forefront of the fight against Big Tobacco.
What Exactly Does the Engle Case Mean?
After a year-long trial, the Engle jury found that:
* Cigarettes are unreasonably dangerous;
* Cigarettes cause numerous types of cancer;
The Florida law firm of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley (Searcy Denney) announced today that a jury has awarded $7,800,000 in compensatory damages to an Escambia County, Florida man following the death of his wife due to her addiction to nicotine contained in cigarettes.
Plaintiff Franklin D. Campbell, Sr., sued RJ Reynolds, Philip Morris USA, and Liggett Group on behalf of his late wife, Betty Jean Campbell, who died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Pensacola at age 64. The trial was held in Circuit Court of First Judicial Circuit in Escambia County, Florida.
Following a month long trial, the jury found that the cigarette companies were legally responsible for Mrs. Campbell’s death. The jury also concluded that Mrs. Campbell was partially at fault, which will reduce the jury’s total verdict by about one half.
“Mr. Campbell expressed satisfaction and a deep sense of gratitude that the jury understood the power that nicotine had over his wife,” said David Sales, of the Searcy Denney law firm. Mrs. Campbell started smoking at age 15 in 1957 and was unable to quit smoking despite repeated attempts. She died in 2006