Florida court kills tobacco award

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

MIAMI -- A Florida appeals court erased a record $145 billion award against the tobacco industry yesterday, ruling that thousands of Florida smokers could not group themselves together for a class-action attack on cigarette makers.

The action came on the same day that more than 190 countries approved the first international treaty against smoking, including an advertising ban, aimed at kicking the global habit that kills nearly 5 million people a year.

Tobacco-company stock prices jumped on news that the 68-page order by a three-judge panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Miami found several flaws in the largest punitive-damage verdict in U.S. history and the two-year trial that produced it.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, the nation's second-largest cigarette company with brands such as Winston and Camel, issued a statement calling the ruling "a major victory for the tobacco industry."

"Tobacco couldn't have wished for a more positive decision," said Martin Feldman, tobacco analyst at Merrill Lynch.

But Mark Gottlieb, a lawyer with the antismoking Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University's law school, called the decision "a terrible blow" to Florida's sick smokers.

Margaret Amodeo, whose husband, Frank, lost his $5.8 million compensatory damage award for throat cancer under the ruling, said they were disappointed. The decision discarded two other individual awards as well.

Janine Goluba, whose late mother had won a $3.5 million award, said the decision was "beyond my comprehension. ... Lie, cheat, deceive and still be able to be on top."

A six-member Miami jury decided almost three years ago that cigarettes are deadly, addictive and defective because they make people sick when used as directed. It set punitive damages for an estimated 300,000 to 700,000 smokers after deciding compensatory damages for Mr. Amodeo and two other cancer sufferers who served as representatives of the group.