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Thousands of sick Florida smokers will be lining up to get their share of a $600 million fund created by major tobacco companies as part of a decade old lawsuit.
In 1994, Miami Beach pediatrician Howard Engle and group of other smokers sued and won a case the cigarette makers for hiding the dangers of smoking and knowingly selling them a dangerous product. Those involved in the suit were awarded $145 billion in damages, but that award was thrown out in 2006 by the Florida Supreme Court. During the years of the trial, the major tobacco companies established a fund that would be paid out even if their appeal of the damage award failed.
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A hearing was held on April 15, 2008, during which the Court made certain rulings related to the allocation and distribution of the Engle Trust Fund.
A Notice outlining the next steps and a Registration Form will be mailed on April 25, 2008. If you have previously received a mailing regarding the Engle Trust Fund, you will automatically be included in the mailing on April 25, 2008.
If you have not previously received a mailing regarding the Engle Trust Fund and if you would like to receive the mailing on April 25, 2008, please call 1 (888) 420-1666 and choose option 2 from the main menu.
The Notice will be available on this website after April 25,
A $600 million trust fund set up to compensate smokers for illnesses will be distributed equally rather than on the severity of their illness or suffering, a Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge ruled Friday.
Determining individual claims and the impact smoking has had on smokers would require lengthy trials, Judge David C. Miller said.
''Every one of you has an individual story to tell,'' Miller said in court. ``But we're dealing with 20,000, 30,000 people. I have to deal with the class, what's best for class as a whole.''
Friday's ruling was the first step toward getting money into the hands of Florida smokers, led by retired Miami Beach pediatrician Howard Engle. His class-action lawsuit against tobacco companies dates back 14 years. A jury in 2000 awarded smokers a landmark $145 billion against R. J. Reynolds, Philip Morris and three other major tobacco firms. The Florida Supreme Court tossed the verdict in 2006.
Tobacco companies had put up $700 million to benefit smokers even if the appeal failed. With interest, the fund now has about $800 million.
They took us into their office and made us part of their family. God has truly given the sick Florida smokers two angels.Diana Duyser, whose husband, Gregg, has emphysema and was part of the original Engle suit, on the Rosenblatts.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge David C. Miller awarded $218 million in legal fees Tuesday to Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt for years of work they put into now-defunct class action litigation against the nation's biggest cigarette markers.
"I find it very reasonable," Miller said from the bench, referring to fee calculations estimating they worked for 77 hours a week on average at an hourly rate of $274. "These are reasonable and conservative hours."
"In fact, in some firms that would not have been acceptable billing," he joked before a courtroom packed with at least 200 people.
Tobacco attorney Robert Heim, a partner with Dechert in Philadelphia, told Miller "it would be wrong under common fund law" to award fees to the Rosenblatts, saying a guardian ad litem should be appointed to administer a fund "to protect the interests of the class."
The fees would come out of a common "guaranteed fund" of about $800 million that Big Tobacco put up as collateral in 2001 to appeal the record $145 billion punitive verdict the Rosenblatt's won against cigarette makers. The verdict was later thrown out by the Florida Supreme Court along with a class certification order uniting sick smokers in a single lawsuit.
Miller still must determine how to distribute the rest of the $800 million fund. . . .
A line to speak in support of the Rosenblatts' fee request ran out of the room. Many people at the hearing were visibly ill or relatives of deceased smokers.
Norwood "Woody" Wilner, a lawyer in Jacksonville, Fla., doesn't see it that way. "I think the tide has turned against these guys," said Wilner, who has sparred with the companies in court numerous times.
Wilner and other lawyers in the Sunshine State recently filed thousands of lawsuits against Henrico County-based Philip Morris USA and other major cigarette companies on behalf of sick smokers and the families of deceased smokers.
The lawsuits, many of which were filed just before a Jan. 11 deadline, stem from a class-action lawsuit known as the Engle case. That case was brought on behalf of thousands of Floridians who alleged the industry deceived them about the dangers of smoking. . . .
For Philip Morris and Altria Group, the cases are simply more of the same litigation the company has fought, largely successfully, for 50 years, said William Ohlemeyer, Altria Group's vice president and associate general counsel. . . .
Anthony Sebok, a law professor at Yeshiva University who follows tobacco litigation, said the Florida cases are a serious challenge for the industry. "It is the first time the industry has faced large-scale individual litigation that might actually succeed," he said, but it's not enough to sink the industry because the number of lawsuits is not in the tens of thousands, as predicted by some industry critics.
We sympathize with John Maloney and millions of others who have lost loved ones to cancer caused by cigarettes.
But it's harder to sympathize with the idea that they should be awarded damages by juries in part because the smoker was unaware of the risks. . . .
But U.S. surgeon generals' warnings about the dangers of smoking have been required on tobacco packaging for more than 40 years. Tobacco advertising has long been banned on TV and radio, and the dangers of smoking have been a continuous topic of public debate.
People who smoked through those years cannot credibly claim to have been unaware of the serious risk. They made a bad choice.
It's better for society to concentrate on helping people make better choices, through education and anti-tobacco advertising, such as that planned under the newly revived Florida youth smoking campaign.
So long as tobacco is legal, this is the way to go.
Now, Maloney is suing the nation's largest tobacco companies in state court, claiming cigarettes killed his wife and the companies concealed nicotine's addictive nature and tobacco's health risks. Joining Maloney are more than 100 Lee County residents and thousands of other Floridians, seeking what could be millions of dollars. . . .
Tobacco companies have been fighting smoking-related lawsuits since the 1950s. Bill Ohlemeyer, vice president and assistant general counsel for Altria Group, the parent company of Philip Morris, said he estimates about 1,200 lawsuits have been filed throughout the industry.
"We have a long history," he said. "We've confronted and overcome these types of cases in the past. We have a strategy to defend them."
He said these won't be easy or quick lawsuits. The burden of proof is on the plaintiffs to prove their claims and the lawsuits essentially come down to proving a few facts -- whether the person's disease was definitively caused by smoking and whether the smokers weren't aware of the risks.
"Just because people have cancer in their lung, doesn't mean they have lung cancer," he said. "Just because people had cancer in their lung and smoked doesn't mean smoking caused their cancer."
Just because people have cancer in their lung, doesn't mean they have lung cancer. Just because people had cancer in their lung and smoked doesn't mean smoking caused their cancer.Bill Ohlemeyer, vice president and assistant general counsel for Altria Group, on Florida's Engle lawsuits.
A Manatee County couple is suing several tobacco companies, claiming cigarettes they sold were defective and known to be dangerous.
Joseph and Florence Doherty had been part of a certified class action lawsuit that was tried in 1999, but the couple has not been able to collect damages, according to the suit, filed at the Manatee County Courthouse.
Here's a county-by-county breakdown of the lawsuits filed against the tobacco industry under "Engle":
Despite a deluge of 167 tobacco-related lawsuits filed on the Treasure Coast, Chief Judge William Roby of the 19th Judicial Circuit promises "swift and efficient justice." . . .
Statewide, the 10,000 or so cases filed was a much smaller number than expected, significantly smaller than the 700,000 class members originally designated as entitled to damage awards.
Still, the local cases "could be pretty taxing on the system," Roby said Tuesday from a conference in Washington, D.C.
Here's his county-by-county game plan:
Three tobacco companies, Phillip Morris, Lorillard and Liggett, put $710-million in an escrow account and promised to give the money to the plaintiffs whether they won or lost on appeal.
In exchange, the Rosenblatts agreed to allow the tobacco companies to appeal and not challenge the constitutionality of the law that capped the bond. . . .
The money is up for grabs by potentially thousands of Floridians who can prove they became sick from smoking before Nov. 21, 1996.
Miami Circuit Judge David C. Miller has set March 31 as the deadline to hear from lawyers, potential claimants and anyone else with interest in the money. He also scheduled an April 15 hearing as a starting point to determine who will get the money and to establish a mechanism for disbursing it.
Besides striking down the judgment in 2006, the Supreme Court also decertified the class of plaintiffs, those 700,000 Florida smokers and their relatives, represented in the lawsuit.
But it gave members of the class until Jan. 11 to file individual lawsuits
Despite a deluge of 167 tobacco-related lawsuits filed on the Treasure Coast, Chief Judge William Roby of the 19th Judicial Circuit promises "swift and efficient justice."
Lawyers on both sides of tobacco litigation now are looking toward the task of trying an estimated 5,000 cases known as "the Engle progeny." About 900 have been counted so far in South Florida. And the total number of cases is still unknown.
Plaintiff attorneys are bullish about the cases filed by last Friday's deadline, but tobacco attorneys contend several issues may take years to litigate.
"It's a fair fight for the first time in the history of tobacco litigation. There are probably 100 lawyers in Florida who are banding together for tobacco litigation, and [the defense] can't outwork us all," said C. Calvin Warriner III with Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley in West Palm Beach.
Although confident of their chances, plaintiff lawyers like Warriner are bristling for a time-consuming battle they fully expect to add more years to the 13-year-old Engle litigation named for a Miami Beach pediatrician with emphysema. . . .
"It's utter nonsense," said Kenneth J. Reilly, a partner with Shook Hardy & Bacon in Miami who represents industry leader Philip Morris and Lorillard. "We're forever characterized as stallers, but the fact is we try cases.
"We think cases need to be properly prepared and ready for trial, but to say we stall is just ridiculous."
The heated words follow the contentious aftermath of the complaint filed by husband-and-wife attorneys Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt . . .
"The reason there are so few Engle plaintiffs compared to the thousands 13 years ago was that the tobacco companies kept the ball in the air so long most of these people are dead," Gerson said.
"Who is going to cry for the 40-, 50- and 60-year-old surviving children of Mr. Lucacs?
"By outliving these victims [the tobacco companies] minimized their risk."
The reason there are so few Engle plaintiffs compared to the thousands 13 years ago was that the tobacco companies kept the ball in the air so long most of these people are dead. Who is going to cry for the 40-, 50- and 60-year-old surviving children of Mr. Lucacs? By outliving these victims [the tobacco companies] minimized their risk.Miami plaintiff attorney Philip Gerson, who is handling about 35 Engle cases.
A judge says justice will be swift and efficient despite a bevy of tobacco-related lawsuits filed to meet a deadline.
More than 160 lawsuits have been filed in the Treasure Coast seeking damages from the country's five largest cigarette producers. . . .
Despite the deluge, Chief Judge William Roby of the 19th Judicial Circuit promises "swift and efficient justice."
Fifty years ago, when I was a second-grade student in a remote valley in Idaho, the state health department sent around an exhibit comparing a normal lung to a smoker's lung. It explained smoking's impact on one's health.
That warning has never changed. It has only intensified as more information has come forward. So why are the courts enabling smokers by accepting more lawsuits?