Tobacco.org

• Award slashed in tobacco case 

Just days after a Jackson County jury awarded $22 million to a deceased smoker's family, a federal appeals court threw out a $15 million verdict Wednesday in another tobacco case.

Reversing the trial judge's award of punitive damages, a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that Kansas City, Kan., resident David Burton failed to prove that the defendant, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., had engaged in "fraudulent concealment" under Kansas law.

The court, however, upheld the jury's award of nearly $200,000 in actual damages based on Reynolds' failure to warn of tobacco's dangers. . . .

Edward Sweda Jr., senior attorney with the Tobacco Products Liability Project in Boston, an anti-smoking group, said the 10th Circuit's ruling in Burton was limited to Kansas and was unlikely to have an adverse impact on punitive-damage awards in tobacco cases in other states.

"Had the court allowed the punitive damages but scaled it way back, that would have had a worse influence on other cases," he said.

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