LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A Florida jury on Thursday ordered cigarette
maker Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million in damages to a 61-year-old
ex-smoker named Cindy Naugle who is wheelchair-bound by emphysema.
The Broward Circuit Court jury assessed $56.6 million in past and
future medical expenses against the company, part of Altria Group Inc,
as well as $244 million in punitive damages.
The verdict is the largest of the so-called Engle progeny cases that have been tried so far, both sides said.
Philip Morris will seek further review of the verdict because of
"numerous erroneous rulings by the trial judge," Philip Morris
spokesman Murray Garnick said in a statement.
"We believe that the punitive damages award is grossly excessive and
a clear violation of constitutional and state law," Garnick said.
Naugle's lawsuit was among about 8,000 cases filed in the wake of a
2006 Florida Supreme Court decision that tossed out a massive class
action against the tobacco companies. The case, known as Engle v. RJ
Reynolds, resulted in the largest verdict in U.S. history at trial —
$145 billion.
The Florida high court ruling, which decertified the class of about 700,000 smokers, allowed some to file individual complaints.
The case is Naugle v. Philip Morris USA.
(Reporting by Gina Keating; editing by Carol Bishopric)
I smoked forty years from the age of 17 until hospitalized in 1997 for emphysema (COPD) Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
I am 70 and COPD was only the beginning of medical conditions.
The reason I’m commenting here is because no one knows what COPD is, nor the fact it is the 4th leading cause of death in the U.S., 5th in the world and climbing!
As hard as I’ve worked toward COPD public education and early detection since about 2004, vocal and advocating …I was shocked twice last week when two different employees of my hometown hospital asked me, “What is COPD?”
I want to sue for the first time in my 70 year life and donate every dime of any settlement to COPD research and education at the University of Washington in Seattle, Mayo or any leading pulmonary research team.
There is no COPD RESEARCH.
I see fluff ads showing people inhaling a drug and dancing while I, and people just like me CAN’T BREATHE much less dance!
COPD is not about dancing or gardening…all things I used to do…it is about BREATHING…straining to suck in air and fighting to exhale it.
Smoking was glamorous when I started – all the famous movie stars smoked and I wanted to be just like them.
I began smoking my mother’s Viceroy cigarettes and ended with years of smoking Pall Malls.
Yes, I chose to smoke..through ignorance, then, later, through addiction.
My hometown newspaper lets me write a blog, COPD and Other Stuff.
Who will take the case and, hopefully, win for the COPD RESEARCH AND EDUCATION cause?
No offense, but I think you have a lame excuse. Since 1964 (45 years) there have been warnings on cigarettes. On top of this, you are 70 years old. That is 4 years from the average life span of the average American. Many more people die at a younger age caused by many other preventable ailments including the food that we eat! It comes down to everyone needing to take personal responsibility for their own actions. I never smoked, but my wife did for 10 years, stopped cold turkey the day she found that she was pregnant with our first child. Never smoked again!