{"id":2365,"date":"2014-07-20T19:33:54","date_gmt":"2014-07-20T19:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2365"},"modified":"2014-07-20T21:06:42","modified_gmt":"2014-07-20T21:06:42","slug":"rj-reynolds-loses-23-6-billion-jury-judgement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2365","title":{"rendered":"RJ Reynolds loses $23.6 billion jury judgement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cigarettes-burning-via-AFP-615x345\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Wow, this is a big “wow.” A big wow that will likely get reduced upon appeal.<\/p>\n

In one of the thousands of Engle liability cases in Florida, a jury awarded a settlement <\/a>of $23.6 billion<\/em> (yeah, billion) in favor of one of the 8,000 Engle plaintiffs. (The Engle decision<\/a> was a Florida Supreme Court decision in 2006 overturning a $145 billion class action decision against Big Tobacco in favour of the plaintiffs. While the court upheld many of the merits of the case, it threw out the class action part of a lower court decision, meaning those 8,000 plaintiffs all have to sue individually.<\/p>\n

So thousands of lawsuits in Florida have moved forward. This is by far the biggest jury judgement against R.J. Reynolds. The jury awarded $15 million in compensatory damages and $23.6 billion in punitive damages (to punish R.J. Reynolds for lying and covering up the true dangers of their product and the addictive nature of nicotine.). That’s one case … versus $145 billion for 8,000 plaintiffs.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, that punitive damage amount is so outrageous, I can’t imagine it will stand up to appeal. As much as I think it sends a message to the tobacco industry from the jury that “Wow, we really think you lied your asses off,” I don’t think it necessarily does a lot of good to make judgements so huge that they can’t possibly hold up. The tobacco industry has not been successful lately, especially in Florida, in winning these Engle cases, but they have been successful in dragging out appeals indefinitely. An appeal will be automatic in this case over such a large sum of money.<\/p>\n

Anyway, there are literally hundreds more of these cases in Florida, and the tobacco industry has been consistently losing them, which is ultimately a good thing. I think ultimately, all these judgements will force RJ and Philip Morris to eventually settle with the thousands of Engle plaintiffs for an amount that for the tobacco industry will still be the “cost of doing business.” Because, \u00a0I figure even the tobacco industry has to get sick of constantly being in court all the time and constantly dealing with legal fees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 a Florida Supreme Court decision … Continue reading RJ Reynolds loses $23.6 billion jury judgement<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2366,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,55,73],"tags":[594,666,616],"class_list":["post-2365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engle-case","category-rj-reynolds","category-tobacco-litigation","tag-engle-case","tag-florida","tag-tobacco-litigation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/camel.jpg?fit=231%2C218&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hpEa-C9","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2542,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2542","url_meta":{"origin":2365,"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":2371,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2371","url_meta":{"origin":2365,"position":1},"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":[]},{"id":2286,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2286","url_meta":{"origin":2365,"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":2883,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2883","url_meta":{"origin":2365,"position":3},"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":2967,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2967","url_meta":{"origin":2365,"position":4},"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":1157,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=1157","url_meta":{"origin":2365,"position":5},"title":"R.J. Reynolds quietly loses $37.5 million judgement","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"August 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"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\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\/2013\/08\/r-GROSSMAN-large570.jpg?fit=570%2C238&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/r-GROSSMAN-large570.jpg?fit=570%2C238&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/r-GROSSMAN-large570.jpg?fit=570%2C238&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2365","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2365"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2370,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2365\/revisions\/2370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}