Smoker's widow wins first lawsuit
Friday, February 13, 2009 |
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The jury that decided a 40-year chain-smoker was helplessly addicted to nicotine must now decide whether tobacco giant Philip Morris owes his family potentially millions of dollars for his death from lung cancer.
The next phase of the closely-watched lawsuit filed by the man’s widow, Elaine Hess, starts today in Broward County Circuit Court. Hess’ lawyers plan to argue that Stuart Hess became hooked on cigarettes because of deceptive practices by Philip Morris that hid the dangers of smoking.
The lawsuit is the first of about 8,000 such cases to go to trial since the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 threw out a $145 billion jury award in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of thousands of smokers and their families.
The state’s high court upheld the conclusion that tobacco companies knowingly sold dangerous products and concealed smoking’s health risks, but ruled each case must be proven individually. The jury’s decision Thursday that Hess did not continue smoking by his own choice was crucial.
Tags »
Embed This Article
Feel free to embed this article onto your website by copying the
code below and pasting it into your site's HTML.
The comments below are from users of theworldlink.com and do not necessarily represent the views of The World or Lee Enterprises. Participation Guidelines
Note: There is a maximum of 200 words per comment. If you wish to post more, please visit our forum.
Not already registered?
The World welcomes your comments about stories, and we encourage a robust dialogue on this site. All comments must meet reasonable standards of decency and civility.
Please follow these basic rules:
- No defamatory comments about individuals or businesses.
- No deliberately false information.
- No obscenity or racially offensive language.
- No harassment, verbal abuse, threats or personal attacks.
- No information that invades another person's privacy.
- No business solicitations or charitable solicitations.
Comments that violate these standards will not be posted. Users with repeated violations may be banned from future posting.Comments will be approved throughout the day during business hours. After hours and weekend comments may not appear until the following business day. It may take a couple of hours before comments are approved.
The World generally does not edit comments, but we reserve the right to edit any comment that does not meet our standards.
Close Guidelines