FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Edward L. Sweda, Jr. or Mark Gottlieb 617-373-8462 or 617-373-2026
A Jacksonville, Florida jury this week assessed $34 million in punitive damages against tobacco giants Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. for their reprehensible misconduct in the case of Andy Allen v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., et al. This award followed a compensatory damages award of $6 million for the family of Patricia Allen, who died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) after having smoked for 36 years. Ms. Allen, who was born in 1948, started smoking in high school at a time when the tobacco companies were targeting teenage girls, according to Allen family attorney Keith Mitnick of Morgan & Morgan.
Edward L. Sweda, Jr., senior Attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project (TPLP), a project of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, based at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, was delighted with the jury’s verdict. Noting that the jury “expressed appropriate and justifiable outrage at the reprehensible misconduct of these tobacco companies,” Sweda applauded the verdict, which was the third highest among the 30 plaintiff verdicts of the 43 Engle Progeny trials that have reached a verdict since February 2009.
It is also significant that this huge plaintiff victory occurred in Jacksonville, since approximately 4000 Engle Progeny cases are pending in state and federal court in Jacksonville.
TPLP Executive Director Mark Gottlieb said, “these trials stemming from the Engle class action suit of the 1990s disrupt business as usual for cigarette companies as juries continually find them liable at an astaunding rate.”
