{"id":2967,"date":"2015-02-25T21:20:19","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T21:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2967"},"modified":"2015-02-25T21:20:19","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T21:20:19","slug":"breaking-big-tobacco-companies-agree-to-100-million-settlement-of-engle-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2967","title":{"rendered":"Breaking: Big Tobacco companies agree to $100 million settlement of Engle cases"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Howard<\/a>
Howard Engle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Breaking news!<\/p>\n

RJ Reynolds, Lorillard and Philip Morris have reached a $100 million settlement<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

The Engle (named after Howard Engle, a smoker who died several\u00a0years ago) cases came from a Florida Supreme Court decision throwing out a $145 billion class-action judgement against Big Tobacco for its years of lies and cover-ups over the dangers of smoking. However, while throwing those cases out, the state Supreme Court opened the way for individual plaintiffs to file separate lawsuits against Big Tobacco.<\/p>\n

Since then, literally thousands of lawsuits have been filed in Florida and Big Tobacco has been losing about two-thirds of these cases, with hundreds of millions of judgements awarded in favour of over a hundred plaintiffs. Most of those judgements have been upheld on appeal.<\/p>\n

Rather than go through at least another decade of losing these cases (not to mention all the legal fees), I figured sooner or later, Big Tobacco was simply going to settle.<\/p>\n

This settlement involves 400 cases filed in federal court. That’s $250,000 per plaintiff. I’m guessing there’s going to be more settlements, because I believe there’s several\u00a0thousand\u00a0more lawsuits ongoing, and that a lot of them are in state courts. So this settlement may have solely been to deal with the federal cases. And in fact, the NBC story is careful to say “it’s the first settlement by Big Tobacco to settle a chunk of Engle cases.”<\/p>\n

Under the agreement, Lorillard will pay $15 million, while RJR and Philip Morris will each pay $42.5 million. This settlement won’t affect cases that have already been settled.<\/p>\n

Great news for these families devastated by smoking! I’ll be keeping an eye out for future Engle settlements in Florida.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  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 Howard Engle, a smoker who … Continue reading Breaking: Big Tobacco companies agree to $100 million settlement of Engle cases<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2968,"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":[24,430,311,239,49,55],"tags":[454,666,638,611],"class_list":["post-2967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engle-case","category-engle-vs-liggett","category-florida","category-lorillard","category-philip-morris","category-rj-reynolds","tag-engle-cases","tag-florida","tag-lorillard","tag-rj-reynolds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Howard-Engle.jpg?fit=600%2C369&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hpEa-LR","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2286,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2286","url_meta":{"origin":2967,"position":0},"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":2967,"position":1},"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":2365,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2365","url_meta":{"origin":2967,"position":2},"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":2542,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2542","url_meta":{"origin":2967,"position":3},"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":2878,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2878","url_meta":{"origin":2967,"position":4},"title":"Another Engle Case judgement — $17.3 million against Philip Morris","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"January 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This is yet another in a long line (literally thousands) of Engle Case lawsuits in Florida. The Engle case was a Supreme Court decision that overturned a $145 billion class-action judgement against Big Tobacco, while at the same time allowing individual lawsuits against various tobacco companies to be filed. This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Engle case"","block_context":{"text":"Engle case","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=24"},"img":{"alt_text":"0.8A!OpenElement&FieldElemFormat=gif","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/0.8AOpenElementFieldElemFormatgif.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2371,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2371","url_meta":{"origin":2967,"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\/2967","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=2967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2969,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions\/2969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}