Florida Lawyers Ready New Round Of Big Tobacco Lawsuits
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
July 10, 2006 5:43 p.m.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP)--Less than a week after the Florida Supreme Court tossed out a massive class-action lawsuit against Big Tobacco, lawyers across the state are gearing up for battle on behalf of individuals and families hurt by smoking.
While the court threw out a $145 billion punitive damages stemming from a class-action suit against cigarette makers, it said smokers can sue the companies individually - and thousands are expected to take advantage. Estimates say the number of Floridians made ill by smoking and eligible to sue under the ruling is somewhere between 300,000 and 700,000.
Jacksonville attorney Norwood "Woody" Wilner says he has a database of more than 7,000 potential plaintiffs and said Monday he expects to begin filing lawsuits within weeks.
"This is a big fight. It is a formidable opponent and they have unlimited resources," Wilner said. He led a legal team that won one of the first successful cases against Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. in 1996 on behalf of Grady Carter, an Orange Park man who developed lung cancer after becoming addicted to nicotine.
Because Thursday's ruling upheld the class-action jury's verdict that cigarette makers had engaged in deceptive practices to hide tobacco's dangers, smokers will no longer need to prove liability to collect damages from the companies.
"We have to prove that they smoked cigarettes and their disease was caused by tobacco," he said.
One of the first suits was filed Monday in Fort Lauderdale by Lucrecia Pummer, whose husband, Rowland, died two years ago from lung cancer. She accuses Philip Morris Companies Inc. and R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. of causing his death.
Pummer had his first cigarette at age 11. When he was diagnosed with heart disease in the mid-1980's, he stopped smoking. Years later, Pummer was diagnosed with lung cancer and died.
"These findings now allow the victims, in individual lawsuits, to focus solely on their own injuries from smoking" said Fort Lauderdale attorney Robert Kelley.
Philip Morris USA said it had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment specifically on the case.
"However, Philip Morris USA will vigorously defend this and any other lawsuit if and when such suits are filed, regardless of whether they are filed by members of the Engle class or other individual smokers," the company said in a statement.
Engle was the name of the lead defendant in the class-action suit that was tossed out.
David Howard, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., said he doesn't know how many lawsuits to expect.
"We are confident in our defenses and will aggressively pursue them." Howard said. "We have a good record in success in smoking and health cases."
Wilner said he is working with Miami attorney Stanley Rosenblatt, who led the class-action case, and other lawyers around the state to try to develop a strategy for the courts to handle a multitude of individual cases.
Attorney Tim Howard, who teaches constitutional law and judicial process at Boston University, said Florida lawyers have been busy since the ruling trying to work out a way to handle such a large number of claims. Some have filed or plan to file lawsuits and some are advertising for clients in Florida newspapers.
"There will be a flood of lawsuits in Florida," Tim Howard said, adding there could be more than 100,000 individual cases |
