Dead Smoker's Daughter Awarded $80M

Jury finds RJ Reynolds 90% responsible for death
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 17, 2010 4:10 AM CST
Dead Smoker's Daughter Awarded $80M
The plaintiff's father smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, starting as a teenager in the 1930s.   (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

The daughter of a man who died of lung cancer after smoking for 60 years has been awarded $80 million by a Florida jury. The jury decided that tobacco giant RJ Reynolds was 90% responsible for the man's death at the age of 76, and ordered the company to pay $8 million in compensatory damages and $72 million in punitive damages, BusinessWeek reports.

The woman's lawyer expects the appeals process to last up to 3 years if the company appeals to Florida's Supreme Court, which he fully expects it to do. "Tobacco always appeals," he said. More than 7,000 smoking-related lawsuits are pending in Florida, and the verdict against RJ Reynolds marks the end of an 8-case winning streak for the tobacco industry, the Wall Street Journal notes.
(More RJ Reynolds stories.)

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