If you or a loved one meets the Florida
Supreme Court criteria for eligibility
to pursue an individual claim against
the tobacco industry, please contact
our law firm to learn more about your
rights.
Florida
Supreme Court Ruling Means Individuals
Can File Individual Smoking Lawsuits
On July 6, 2006 the Florida
Supreme Court supported a lower court
decision to throw out a $145 billion
punitive damage award against the big
tobacco companies, a big victory for
the cigarette industry. The lower appellate
court had decided that the class action
lawsuit should not have been certified,
and the Florida Supreme Court agreed.
Although the court ruling decreases
the cigarette makers' monetary exposure
in the state of Florida, it was still
a victory for potential plaintiffs.
In a 79-page decision, the court overruled
the appeals court by reinstating an
estimated $7 million in compensatory
damages that the jury had awarded to
two individual class representatives
with lung cancer in an earlier phase
of the trial.
The Florida
jury concluded that smoking cigarettes
causes the following:
Additional
jury decision findings:
If
you or a loved one has been injured
as a result of smoking cigarretes, please
immediately contact
the Accident Law Offices of Philip DeBerard
1-800-299-8878
Florida Tobacco
Litigation
The Florida Supreme Court has finally
ruled on the Engle case, and has held
that cigarette manufacturers were negligent
and that their products are defective,
unreasonably dangerous, addictive, and
the cause of 16 major diseases. The
Florida Supreme Court reversed the Third
District Court of Appeal, and held that
the cigarette manufacturers are liable
for a) negligence; b) defective and
unreasonably dangerous products; c)
addictive products; d) strict liability;
e) fraud by concealment; f) civil conspiracy-misrepresentation;
g) conspiracy-concealment; h) breach
of implied warranty; i) general causation.
In addition, the Court ruled that cigarette
smoking causes the following diseases:
aortic aneurysm, bladder cancer, cerebrovascular
disease, cervical cancer, chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease, coronary heart disease,
esophageal cancer, kidney cancer, laryngeal
cancer, lung cancer (specifically, adenocarinoma,
large cell carcinoma, small cell carcinoma,
and squamous cell carcinoma), complications
of pregnancy, oral cavity/tongue cancer,
pancreatic cancer, peripheral vascular
disease, pharyngeal cancer, and stomach
cancer.
Each of these findings on liability
need not be proven at trial by class
members who file individual claims in
Florida within the year (res judicata).
At trial, individual members of the
class will need to prove that they smoked
a defendant's product, that the smoking
caused their specific case of whichever
disease is at issue, and that they relied
on a defendant's fraudulent claims (but
only if fraud is alleged in the complaint
and it need not be). While the companies
can defend these cases, they cannot
claim that they were not negligent,
that their products are not defective
or unreasonably dangerous and addictive,
that smoking does not cause the 16 aforementioned
diseases, or otherwise deny any of the
other findings that the Court determined
were binding on these subsequent cases.
The decision is available online at:
http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/2006/sc03-1856.pdf
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