Florida jury awards $23.6 billion to widow in smoking lawsuit

freeze

freeze

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Son.....com'n b..Florida juries hella cheeks in the game


(CNN) -- A Florida jury awarded a widow $23.6 billion in punitive damages in her lawsuit against tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, her lawyer said.

Cynthia Robinson claimed that smoking killed her husband, Michael Johnson, in 1996. She argued R.J. Reynolds was negligent in not informing him that nicotine is addictive and smoking can cause lung cancer. Johnson started smoking when he was 13 and died of lung cancer when he was 36.

The jury award Friday evening is "courageous," said Robinson's lawyer, Christopher Chestnut.

"If anyone saw the documents that this jury saw, I believe that person would have awarded a similar or greater verdict amount," he said.

The Escambia County trial took four weeks and the jury deliberated for 15 hours, according to the Pensacola News Journal. The verdict included more than $16 million in compensatory damages, the newspaper said.

Chestnut said five of the six jurors who heard the case were 45 or younger, which meant he had to show hem how the tobacco industry presented its product before the public awareness campaigns on tobacco risks and dangers in the 1990s, he said.

In a statement, J. Jeffery Raborn, vice president and assistant general counsel for R. J. Reynolds, said, "The damages awarded in this case are grossly excessive and impermissible under state and constitutional law.

"This verdict goes far beyond the realm of reasonableness and fairness and is completely inconsistent with the evidence presented," said Raborn. "We plan to file post-trial motions with the trial court promptly and are confident that the court will follow the law and not allow this runaway verdict to stand."

Robinson's case was once part of a class-action lawsuit in which a jury had awarded $145 billion in damages, but in 2006 the Florida Supreme Court overturned that verdict. In its ruling, however, the state's high court opened the door for individual lawsuits against tobacco companies.

Robinson filed her lawsuit in 2008.
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How much? :x

Sometimes I wonder why people choose to smoke in the first place...it's like, do you want to die sooner? or...
 
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Law3001 said:
Yeah but **** tobacco companies so I'll allow it
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Yup, I'm all for this decision.

RIP to her husband
tired.gif
.
 
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gregzzy23 said:
23 billion? Is she a actually gonna see that? Bout to wife that
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No. There will be an appeal and they'll settle on something smaller but significant.

I personally think that lawsuits against tobacco companies are a load of ****.
 
Rell826 said:
gregzzy23 said:
23 billion? Is she a actually gonna see that? Bout to wife that
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No. There will be an appeal and they'll settle on something smaller but significant.

I personally think that lawsuits against tobacco companies are a load of ****.
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i agree
especially in this day and age
its KNOWN they can kill u

EDIT: if people can win against tobacco companies
u guys think us african americans can sue and win for slavery?? :nerd:
anybody wanna start a class action lawsuit??? :nerd:
 
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Rell826 said:
gregzzy23 said:
23 billion? Is she a actually gonna see that? Bout to wife that
Click to expand...

No. There will be an appeal and they'll settle on something smaller but significant.

I personally think that lawsuits against tobacco companies are a load of ****.
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bro when I saw somebody sue McDonalds for making them fat...and win...I knew we were headed to the end of days. I'm finna sue the internet for making me look at all this sinful porn.
 
Freeze said:
Rell826 said:
gregzzy23 said:
23 billion? Is she a actually gonna see that? Bout to wife that
Click to expand...

No. There will be an appeal and they'll settle on something smaller but significant.

I personally think that lawsuits against tobacco companies are a load of ****.
Click to expand...


bro when I saw somebody sue McDonalds for making them fat...and win...I knew we were headed to the end of days. I'm finna sue the internet for making me look at all this sinful porn.
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i also remember back in the day someone suing mcdonalds cause they spilled their own coffee on themselves
and they won
 
nawghtyhare said:
Freeze said:
Rell826 said:
gregzzy23 said:
23 billion? Is she a actually gonna see that? Bout to wife that
Click to expand...

No. There will be an appeal and they'll settle on something smaller but significant.

I personally think that lawsuits against tobacco companies are a load of ****.
Click to expand...


bro when I saw somebody sue McDonalds for making them fat...and win...I knew we were headed to the end of days. I'm finna sue the internet for making me look at all this sinful porn.
Click to expand...
i also remember back in the day someone suing mcdonalds cause they spilled their own coffee on themselves
and they won
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That case is in every business law textbook :lol: but yea that's wild
 
Billion?! BILLION?!? That's wild. I suspect this is more about sticking it hard to the tobacco company than it being a good case because the argument is garbage, you smoke daily for 30+ years you know you headed to an early grave. There is no way you can claim ignorance there. And that lawyer is going to retire on that payday too, hoo boy.
 
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Back in those days, there was ignorance though.

Ya'll are forgetting that up until the '90s tobacco companies were putting alot of money into making sure people DIDN'T know smoking was bad for you.

We have all this information now, and it seems so obvious, but before the '90s all that information was purposefully hidden and kept out of public knowledge.
 
nawghtyhare said:
i also remember back in the day someone suing mcdonalds cause they spilled their own coffee on themselves
and they won
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Yes, because the coffee was being served at incredibly high temperatures (180-190 degrees F) so that people were less likely to come back for refills. The person that the coffee spilled on had severe burns. If I recall correctly, the only reason they sued was because McDonalds refused to cover their medical bills from the incident. 
 
Boris said:
nawghtyhare said:
[thread="601163"] [/thread]
i also remember back in the day someone suing mcdonalds cause they spilled their own coffee on themselves

and they won
Click to expand...

Yes, because the coffee was being served at incredibly high temperatures (180-190 degrees F) so that people were less likely to come back for refills. The person that the coffee spilled on had severe burns. If I recall correctly, the only reason they sued was because McDonalds refused to cover their medical bills from the incident. 
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and on top of that they were giving you this extremely hot coffee in regular thin flimsy paper cups, which did nothing to stop your hand from getting super hot which led to the woman spilling the coffee.

the lawsuit is atually the reason why when you get coffee they put it in that little cardboard sleeve.

but, whatever. people wanna complain about the person suing the giant corporation like McDonald's gives a **** about them :lol:
 
I don't even believe that dollar amount.

And regarding McDonald's coffee, I don't see them using the sleeve on their regular coffee
 
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