South Florida lawyers won a $36 million tobacco verdict with only 1 percent comparative fault assigned to the smoker who picked up the addictive as a teenager in the 1950s.

The result wasn't unusual for lead plaintiffs attorneys Gary Paige of Gordon & Doner in Davie and Randy Rosenblum of Dolan Dobrinsky Rosenblum in Miami. Paige has won a number of similar verdicts, including a $35 million award upheld last week on appeal, and often the defendants in his cases are found liable for more than 90 percent of the damages.

“The reason why I believe these juries do find very low comparative fault is they have to consider the smoker and the world that he grew up in and the world he was exposed to, which is very different than today,” said Paige, whose trial team included firm colleague Cassandra Castellano-Lombard, and Richard Lantinberg and Jay Plotkin of the Wilner Firm in Jacksonville.