Tobacco is back. Six of the nation’s largest verdicts last year came from Florida juries to smokers and their families in cases against Big Tobacco. But one topped them all: On July 17, an Escambia County jury awarded nearly $17 million to the widow and son of a man who had died from lung cancer at 36 years old, and the next day added $23.6 billion in punitive damages.
The verdict was the largest in the nation, according to The National Law Journal affiliate VerdictSearch’s Top 100 Verdicts of 2014 report. Willie Gary of Gary, Williams, Parenti & Watson in Stuart, Fla., who represented Cynthia Robinson (left, with Gary), the widow of the late Michael Johnson, credited his team’s focus on the conduct of the tobacco companies.
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