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Appeals Court Upholds California Jury’s Multi-Million Dollar Verdict against R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris 

The family of Leslie Whiteley, a smoker who smoked her first cigarette in 1972 at age 13, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1998 and who died in July 2000 at the age of 40, won a major victory on Wednesday when the Court of Appeal of the State of California, First Appellate District, Division Two, upheld the jury’s awards, rendered in 2007, for her estate: $225,000 (for past economic damages); $2,345,964 (on wrongful death claims); and $250,000 (in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds on the false promise cause of action). The jury also awarded Leonard Whiteley, Leslie’s widower, $30,000 for pre-death loss of consortium.

“I am delighted for the Whiteley family that the Court of Appeal has rejected each of the tobacco companies’ arguments to overturn the verdict. The family is closer to the day when these companies will be held accountable for their reprehensible wrongdoing,” said Edward L. Sweda, Jr., Senior Attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project (TPLP), which is based at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston.

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