MIAMI — A Florida jury slammed R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. last week with $23.6 billion in punitive damages in a lawsuit filed by the widow of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer in 1996.
The case is one of thousands filed in Florida after the state Supreme Court in 2006 tossed out a $145 billion class-action verdict. That ruling said smokers and their families need only prove addiction and that smoking caused their illnesses or deaths.
The damages a Pensacola jury awarded Friday to Cynthia Robinson come in addition to $16.8 million in compensatory damages. Her attorneys said the punitive damages are the largest of any individual case stemming from the original class-action lawsuit.
Reynolds vice president Jeffery Raborn called the damages in Robinson’s case “grossly excessive and impermissible under state and constitutional law.”
