{"id":1157,"date":"2013-08-04T13:24:16","date_gmt":"2013-08-04T19:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theloungeisback.wordpress.com\/?p=1157"},"modified":"2014-01-10T17:38:14","modified_gmt":"2014-01-10T17:38:14","slug":"rj-reynolds-quietly-loses-37-5-million-judgement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=1157","title":{"rendered":"R.J. Reynolds quietly loses $37.5 million judgement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"r-GROSSMAN-large570\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This story didn’t get as much attention as I would’ve have expected, I think because it’s actually becoming routine.<\/p>\n

A jury last week awarded<\/a> a family who lost their wife and mother to lung cancer in 1995 after years of smoking a $37.5 award from R.J. Reynolds.<\/p>\n

This judgement is part of the old Engle Florida Supreme Court case. In that case, a huge class action settlement — $145 billion — was awarded to a number of smokers for the tobacco industry’s long and sordid history of lying about the addictiveness of nicotine and for marketing to kids.<\/p>\n

The tobacco industry filed an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court and the court threw the award out. At the time — 2006 — it appeared to be a big victory for Big Tobacco, but it was a mixed ruling. The Supreme Court threw out the award, but did allow each of the plaintiffs to file individual lawsuits against the tobacco industry.<\/p>\n

That has turned out to be a big deal. There were a total of 8,000 individual lawsuits<\/a> filed in Florida as a result of the ruling, so Big Tobacco is constantly in court in Florida, and repeatedly losing jury awards. $37.5 million won’t break RJR, but multiply $37.5 million by 8,000 — now you’re hurting the industry … big time. So far, $360 million damages have been awarded as a result of the Engle ruling — nowhere near the original $145 billion number, but hurting the industry nonetheless (You know the biggest reason cigarettes are more expensive now than 10 years ago? It’s not cigarette taxes, it’s legal costs.)<\/p>\n

R..J Reynolds tried to use the old hoary defence of “it was her choice to smoke,” but that defence has failed time and again in these jury awards, for two reasons A) Big Tobacco was knowingly selling a toxic, poisonous and physically addictive product .. and lied for decades about the addictive nature of nicotine, and B) Because of the industry’s long and sordid history of marketing to teens (R.J. Reynolds are the guys who invented Joe Camel, remember.). It’s interesting reading a lot of the comments on this story about what BS the ruling is because it was her choice to smoke. No, they don’t get it. That defence doesn’t carry much weight with juries or judges, the fact is because they lied and covered up the dangers of their product, the tobacco industry is still liable for damages … “it was their choice to smoke” isn’t going to work. I tried making that point on that thread at HP; I got a few likes but no responses.<\/p>\n

The woman who died in this case — Laura Grossman — was only 38 when she died of lung cancer in 1995.<\/p>\n

R.J. Reynolds (which makes Philip Morris look like choir boys by comparison sometimes) also made the absolutely despicable defence that Grossman’s death was her husband’s fault because he didn’t do more to make her quit.<\/p>\n

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company has appealed the verdict, claiming that Grossman’s husband, Jan Grossman, should be held responsible<\/a> for Laura’s death for “failing to change another person\u2019s course of conduct.\u201d As part of the court ruling<\/a>, Grossman’s husband and two children were also awarded $15 million in compensatory damages.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That just shows how utterly venal these guys are, especially R.J. Reynolds.<\/p>\n

R.J. Reynolds will definitely appeal, the company always does. And they might get the award reduced; Big Tobacco has had some success there, but not as often as in the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story didn’t get as much attention as I would’ve have expected, I think because it’s actually becoming routine. A jury last week awarded a family who lost their wife and mother to lung cancer in 1995 after years of smoking a $37.5 award from R.J. Reynolds. This judgement is part of the old Engle … Continue reading R.J. Reynolds quietly loses $37.5 million judgement<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,55,69,73],"tags":[594,168],"class_list":["post-1157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engle-case","category-rj-reynolds","category-tobacco-2","category-tobacco-litigation","tag-engle-case","tag-r-j-reynolds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/r-GROSSMAN-large570.jpg?fit=570%2C238&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hpEa-iF","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2542,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2542","url_meta":{"origin":1157,"position":0},"title":"Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds lose another $41 million settlement, this one for giving a person COPD","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"October 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Tobacco giants Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds lost another major settlement this week\u00a0in Florida. This case is one of the thousands of Engle cases winding their way through the Florida courts. R.J. Reynolds will appeal this verdict (oh, yes they will) but several of these verdicts have been upheld by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "COPD"","block_context":{"text":"COPD","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=19"},"img":{"alt_text":"camel","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/camel.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2365,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2365","url_meta":{"origin":1157,"position":1},"title":"RJ Reynolds loses $23.6 billion jury judgement","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"July 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow, this is a big \"wow.\" A big wow that will likely get reduced upon appeal. In one of the thousands of Engle liability cases in Florida, a jury awarded a settlement of $23.6 billion (yeah, billion) in favor of one of the 8,000 Engle plaintiffs. (The Engle decision was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Engle case"","block_context":{"text":"Engle case","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=24"},"img":{"alt_text":"Cigarettes-burning-via-AFP-615x345","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Cigarettes-burning-via-AFP-615x345-300x168.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2286,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2286","url_meta":{"origin":1157,"position":2},"title":"U.S. Supreme Court leaves Florida jury awards intact in Engle cases — this is a big deal","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"June 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a continuation of the long-running Engle case in Florida. Many years ago, a jury issued a $145 billion class action judgement against Big Tobacco for knowingly selling a toxic, addictive product to people, and then lying about it. This came to be known as the Engle case ($110\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Engle case"","block_context":{"text":"Engle case","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=24"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Howard_Engle.jpg?fit=600%2C369&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Howard_Engle.jpg?fit=600%2C369&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Howard_Engle.jpg?fit=600%2C369&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2967,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2967","url_meta":{"origin":1157,"position":3},"title":"Breaking: Big Tobacco companies agree to $100 million settlement of Engle cases","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"February 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Breaking news! RJ Reynolds, Lorillard and Philip Morris have reached a $100 million settlement of 400 \u00a0Engle cases in Florida. I thought they might do this. I've been writing for months that, every way I cut it, it was in their interest to do this. The Engle (named after\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Engle case"","block_context":{"text":"Engle case","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=24"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Howard-Engle.jpg?fit=600%2C369&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Howard-Engle.jpg?fit=600%2C369&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Howard-Engle.jpg?fit=600%2C369&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2883,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2883","url_meta":{"origin":1157,"position":4},"title":"RJ Reynolds punitive damages reduced from $23 billion to $16.9 million","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"February 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This was entirely predictable. A Florida jury, in one of the thousands of Engle progeny cases, recently awarded a punitive judgement against RJ Reynolds for $23 billion because a widow's husband died from smoking cigarettes. I hate RJ Reynolds as much as the next guy, but I knew that no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Engle case"","block_context":{"text":"Engle case","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=24"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/rj_reynolds.jpg?fit=520%2C395&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2371,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2371","url_meta":{"origin":1157,"position":5},"title":"Duh! story of the day. $23.6 billion judgement against RJ Reynolds unlikely to hold up","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"July 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 I talked about this in a post the other day. A jury last week awarded $23.6 billion in punitive damages against RJ Reynolds in one of the thousands of Engle cases in Florida. I said that dollar amount would likely never hold up on appeal. Well, sure enough, some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Engle case"","block_context":{"text":"Engle case","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=24"},"img":{"alt_text":"camel","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/camel.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1513,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions\/1513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}