Philip Morris to Cough Up $27 Million

Last month, a federal judge in Florida upheld a $27 million verdict against a major tobacco company in favor of a woman with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) who first started smoking at the age of fourteen. The bulk of the verdict was a punitive damages award of $20,760,000.14, with the 14 cents added to highlight the despicable act of tobacco marketers who deliberately targeted impressionable youths to become lifelong smokers addicted to their product.

The plaintiff in the case smoked filtered, light cigarettes, believing them to be safer than regular filtered cigarettes. Evidence brought out in the trial showed that light cigarettes were marketed as being safer, even though the tobacco companies knew at the time that they weren’t. The case is Judith Berger v. R.J. Reynolds, et. al. The case was brought against a number of tobacco companies, although it is Philip Morris USA Inc. who is stuck with this verdict.

The Berger case is one of many Engle-progeny cases currently being litigated in Florida. Engle-progeny cases are those cases which followed the 2006 Florida Supreme Court opinion in Engle v. Liggett Group, Inc., where the court affirmed the jury’s factual findings regarding tobacco company misconduct but decertified the class the trial court had certified, giving members of the decertified class one year to file individual lawsuits. A crucial issue in these cases is being able to prove that the COPD or other tobacco-related illness manifested on or before November 21, 1996, when the class had been certified. Many cases have litigated what it means for an illness to “manifest itself” and whether that means it must have been diagnosed at that time. The judge in Berger held that “manifestation” is the point in time when the disease became symptomatic – in other words, not necessarily diagnosed but diagnosable.