Attorney: Verdict's $12 Million in Punitive Damages Signals Disapproval with Big Tobacco's Practices
FT. LAUDERDALE, FL / ACCESSWIRE / April 26, 2017 / A Hillsboro County, Florida, jury last week deliberated more than 18 hours before awarding $15 million in damages against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. The award included $3 million for pain and suffering of the smoker, Johnnie Lima, and $12 million in punitive damages that lawyers argued were necessary as a result of the tobacco industry's practices.
Jurors found that Johnny Lima, who was 60 when he died in 1994, was addicted to R.J. Reynolds' cigarettes containing nicotine. Lima left behind his wife, a son and three daughters, grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.
"Mr. Lima's story is another in the sad legacy of tobacco in America," said Scott Schlesinger, who along with attorneys Brittany Chambers, Steven Hammer and Jonathan Gdanski with Schlesinger Law Offices, represented widow Mary Lima. Steve Yerrid from Yerrid Law Firm in Tampa was co-counsel. "He used the product as intended and we proved to the jury's satisfaction that his addiction to nicotine had a direct negative effect on his health."
Johnny and Mary Lima met as teens in the Tampa area. Johnny's family lived in Ybor City, famous for its Cuban heritage and cigar industry that employed Johnny's father as a cigar roller. Mary's family was from Italy and owned a neighborhood Italian grocery store. They dated for seven years before marrying in 1954.
Johnny Lima started smoking as a teen. Throughout his life, he smoked unfiltered Pall Malls, Lucky Strikes, Winston, and later Winston Lights. In his late 50s, Mr. Lima became ill with pulmonary fibrosis, heart disease, emphysema and lung cancer.
At trial, Ms. Lima's attorneys produced evidence that the tobacco industry manipulates nicotine in cigarettes, markets to the youth as the base of their business and lied to the American public about the health hazards and the addictive nature of cigarettes.
At trial, Schlesinger argued that cigarette makers continue to target youth with the same fervor that they did when they hooked Mr. Lima as a teen. Cigarette filters later were added as a "marketing gimmick" used to assuage smokers' growing concerns about the product's harmful effects.
Even at trial, industry attorneys refuted decades of studies proving smoking's deadly effects, just as tobacco industry executives have for years. Despite assurances otherwise, tobacco continues to invest heavily to recruit young smokers to replace those who are dying from its effects, like Mr. Lima. Seeing consumers' health concerns, the industry has introduced "all-natural, additive-free" cigarettes, like American Spirit, which offers false reassurances to next-generation smokers, Schlesinger explained.
The industry also is actively resisting calls to raise the legal smoking age to 21 years, hoping to continue to hook teenage smokers - even those under 18.
The most powerful venue against "Big Tobacco" may come in the courts. With the U.S. Food and Drug Administration failing to enact any meaningful regulations for close to a decade, and the tobacco industry's power across state and federal legislatures and even public opinion, juries may present the court of most resistance.
Schlesinger Law Offices is lead counsel in the national multi-district litigation against Reynolds' Natural American Spirit cigarette, which is pending in the federal district court in New Mexico. The lawsuit was brought under the False and Deceptive Unfair Trade Practices Act. Now, other firms and plaintiffs around the country have joined to stop the spread of "organic natural" cigarettes, he said.
"Our firm is dedicated to lawsuits in the interest of public health," said Schlesinger, whose firm has tried among the most tobacco cases as any firm nationally, and has won verdicts totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars. "We pursue these cases because the surgeon general and others have encouraged litigation against the tobacco industry as a significant public health benefit. Big Tobacco is the enterprise of death. Litigation saves lives."
The Lima case is one of thousands of similar "Engle progeny" cases stemming from the Florida Supreme Court overturning a $145 billion verdict against the companies. The court also ruled plaintiffs - numbering close to 700,000 - could use findings from that case to file future lawsuits against tobacco companies.
SOURCE: Schlesinger Law Offices PA