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R.J. Reynolds Told by Florida Jury to Pay $30 Million (Update2) 

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the second-biggest U.S. cigarette maker, should pay $30 million to a woman whose husband died of lung cancer after years of smoking, a Florida jury said.

A six-person panel in state court in Pensacola, Florida, yesterday awarded Hilda Martin $25 million in punitive damages to punish the cigarette maker for the death of her husband, Benny Martin. The jury last week awarded Martin $5 million in compensation. Mark Belasic, a company lawyer, said the company will appeal. . . .

“We think the jury verdict is an outlier,” Belasic, of Jones Day in Cleveland, said yesterday in a phone interview. “There have been six of these individual Engle lawsuits and no one has been anywhere near this type of verdict.”

Martin’s lawyer, Matt Schultz, whose father died of smoking-related lung cancer less than two years ago, disagreed with Belasic’s characterization, saying the cigarette industry can expect more of the same as more cases go to trial.

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