Miami Jury Returns $17.5 Million Verdict Against RJ Reynolds, Philip Morris
"These cases ... have a bigger meaning than just moving money from one side of the room to the other," said plaintiffs' co-counsel Stuart Ratzan.
March 05, 2018 at 01:47 PM
5 minute read
A Miami jury returned a $17.5 million verdict, including $10 million in punitive damages, against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Philip Morris USA in a smoker's death.
After a three-week trial before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge David Miller, jurors sided with Kenneth Gloger, who claimed the tobacco companies conspired for almost 50 years to conceal the truth about the dangers of cigarettes.
Gloger served as personal representative of the estate of his deceased wife, Irene, who died in 1996 after a battle with lung cancer.
“These cigarette … companies lied, cheated and stole from the American people for over 45 years,” said plaintiffs lawyer Stuart Ratzan of the Ratzan Law Group in Miami.
Ratzan teamed with partner Stuart J. Weissman, Key Biscayne litigator John Crabtree of Crabtree & Auslander and Fort Lauderdale attorney Edward Zebersky of Zebersky Payne to represent Gloger in the Engle progeny case.
Plaintiffs counsel argued the defendants knowingly sold a dangerous product for decades, putting profit before customer safety.
“They hooked an entire generation of kids, who by the 1990s were dying of cancer,” Ratzan said. “I'm just amazed by how they occupy this perch in American life.”
The biggest hurdle for Weissman, Crabtree, Zebersky and Ratzan was convincing jurors, who now understand that tobacco and nicotine can lead to addiction and illness, that consumers were once in the dark about these risks.
“That's hard to overcome. People tend to use 2018 goggles to gain perspective on things that happened in the 1940s, '50s and '60s,” Ratzan said. “The cigarette companies had a marketing campaign to make smoking cool. … They knew that the younger they got kids hooked, they would get customers for life.”
Irene Gloger tried her first cigarette when she was 14, according to court pleadings. She was addicted by 15 and dead by 47 from lung cancer after decades of tobacco use, according to her attorneys. She quit smoking in 1995, but it was too late, and she died the following year. She had two children but never lived to see any of her four grandchildren.
“It took her a few years, but when her father-in-law was diagnosed with emphysema, the truth of the danger of smoking cigarettes became clear to her,” Ratzan said.
Irene Gloger's attorneys said she tried to quit for years, using prescription nicotine patches when they first became available to help wean her off cigarettes. Their four-count amended complaint for damages, filed in October 2014, alleged negligence, strict liability, fraudulent concealment and civil conspiracy to fraudulently conceal.
The case had 448 docket entries by the end of last month.
Defense counsel included Keri L. Arnold of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer in New York, Laura K. Whitmore of Shook, Hardy & Bacon in Tampa, Cory Hohnbaum of King & Spalding in Charlotte, North Carolina, and his Atlanta colleagues W. Randall Bassett and Val Leppert. They raised numerous affirmative defenses, including arguments the plaintiff failed to raise a valid course of action and federal law precluded some of Kenneth Gloger's claims.
The jury disagreed and returned the verdict in plaintiff's favor Feb. 5.
Jurors found Irene Gloger was addicted to cigarettes containing nicotine, and that was a legal cause of her lung cancer and death. They found both defendants responsible and awarded both compensatory and punitive damages. In determining comparative fault, they held R.J. Reynolds 50 percent accountable, Philip Morris 30 percent responsible and assigned 20 percent of the blame to Irene Gloger.
Jurors award Kenneth Gloger and his two children $2.5 million each for a total of $7.5 million plus $5 million in punitive damages against each company.
“These cases, they have a bigger meaning than just moving money from one side of the room to the other,” Ratzan said. “There are safer ways to deliver nicotine but none more profitable than the cigarette.”
Kenneth Gloger, as personal representative of the Estate of Irene Gloger v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, et al.
Case no.: 11-23377 CA 21
Description: Products liability
Filing date: Jan. 10, 2008
Verdict date: Feb. 5, 2018
Judge: Miami-Dade Circuit Judge David Miller
Plaintiffs attorneys: Stuart N. Ratzan and Stuart J. Weissman, Ratzan Law Group, Miami; Edward H. Zebersky, Zebersky Payne, Fort Lauderdale; and John G. Crabtree, Crabtree & Auslander, Key Biscayne
Defense attorneys: Cory Hohnbaum, Charlotte, North Carolina, and W. Randall Bassett and Val Leppert, Atlanta, King & Spalding; Keri L. Arnold, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, New York; and Laura K. Whitmore, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, Tampa
Verdict amount: $17.5 million
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View All'They Got All Bent Out of Shape:' Parkland Lawyers Clash With Each Other
Tampa Jury Returns $5.8M Verdict Against Insurer Who Denied Coverage
2 minute readEven the Chief Judge Noted the Cost of This Broward Case
Marriott's $52M Data Breach Settlement Points to Emerging Trend
Trending Stories
- 1Gordon Rees Opens 80th Office, ‘Collaboration Hub’ in Palo Alto
- 2The White Stripes Drop Copyright Claim Against Trump Campaign
- 3Law Firm Accused of Barratry for Allegedly Soliciting Crash Victims
- 4Carlton Fields Downsizes in Move to New Atlanta Office
- 5Trump's Selection of Zeldin to Head EPA Draws Surprise, Little Hope of Avoiding Deregulation
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250