June 11, 2020
Less than 48 hours after a virtual oral argument held via Zoom, the Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld, without comment, a Broward County jury’s award of $20 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the surviving spouse of a woman who died of lung cancer after smoking for over forty years.
The case stems from the landmark Engle class-action lawsuit filed against major tobacco companies, including the defendants, R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris. At trial, the plaintiff presented evidence that his wife was heavily addicted to cigarettes, smoking up to two packs per day. She tried to quit numerous times but was unable to stop until being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in 1994. After suffering through years of pain and the loss of her mental capacities and motor skills, she passed away in 1999 at the age of sixty-nine. She and the plaintiff were married for forty-four years.
Read the full story here: https://www.bhappeals.com/brannock-humphries-berman-upholds-multimillion-dollar-jury-verdict/