Lawyers Ask $154 Billion for Fla. Smokers

July 10, 2000 -- Tobacco companies that caused health problems for more than 300,000 Florida smokers should pay damages of $154 billion, the largest punitive damage request ever in a product liability case, a plaintiffs’ attorney told jurors during closing arguments today.

“The day of reckoning has arrived,” smokers’ lawyer Stanley Rosenblatt told jurors today. He said cigarette makers are responsible for millions of deaths, leaving a “half century trail of deceit.”

Rosenblatt presented a range of possible judgments between $123 billion and $196 billion to six Miami jurors and said, “An appropriate, just number would be $154 billion.”

The case, known as the Engle trial, is the only class-action lawsuit by smokers against the tobacco industry to ever go to trial. Industry analysts and tobacco companies have maintained all along that the case will very likely be overturned on appeal simply because they think the case should have never been certified as a class action.

Last year, the jury decided the tobacco companies make a deadly, defective product and should be held liable for damages. This portion of the trial is strictly to determine how much should be paid by Philip Morris Co. Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the Liggett Group Inc., Lorillard Tobacco Co. and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.

Deliberations Next WeekJury deliberations are not expected to begin until next week, but a short deliberation process is expected. Until today, it was unknown how much plaintiffs would seek in damages, but amounts as high as $300 billion were discussed.

The verdict could easily set a new U.S. record for punitive damages in a product liability case, surpassing the $4.8 billion judgment against General Motors a year ago in a California car fire. A judge slashed that award to $1.09 billion.

“Given the types of numbers mentioned by both sides, our hunch is that the jury may award far less than the gigadigit expectations of the media,” Martin Feldman, the tobacco analyst at Solomon Smith Barney, told investors in a note last week. “Perhaps an award in the high single digit — or low double digit — billion dollar range is most likely.”

Feldman also predicted the appeal in the Florida court will take about two years.

Limits on AwardAlthough the tobacco companies want a punitive verdict of zero, they sought an upper limit of $15.3 billion, the industry’s audited net worth. Circuit Judge Robert Kaye refused to set a cap on possible damages.

Under a new Florida law passed during the trial, a punitive verdict cannot put a company out of business, and judges are required to reduce any award that would do so.

The key tobacco defense is that the industry has changed its ways since state attorneys general began suing in 1994, the same year the smokers’ suit was filed.

The Liggett Group has been at the forefront of that claim, saying for three years that smoking causes cancer and is addictive. The company stopped advertising, sold its premium brands and turned over thousands of secret industry documents that pushed other companies into a multimillion-dollar master settlement with the states.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.