After the State Supreme Court threw out a $145 billion class-action award for all Florida smokers, 8,000 or so individual lawsuits were filed. In the past few weeks two juries have awarded nearly $45 million in two of these Florida personal injury lawsuits.
The first verdict came March 12 when a Gainesville jury ruled against R.J. Reynolds to the tune of $12.5 million in punitive damages and another $5 million in compensatory damages to the widow of a smoker who died in 1995. Less than two weeks later a jury in Fort Lauderdale awarded a total of $26.6 million to Robin Cohen the widow of a long time smoker who died of lung cancer. This verdict came against Robert Morris and R.J. Reynolds.