A US court has ordered the country’s second largest cigarette company to pay $23.6 billion (£13.8bn) to the wife of a smoker who died of lung cancer. RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company was hit with the punitive fine in addition to $16.8m (£9.8m) in compensatory damages. A company official said the verdict was “extremely excessive and unallowable under state and constitutional law.”
Cynthia Robinson took action against the firm in 2008, seeking compensation for her husband’s death in 1996.
During the four-week trial, lawyers for Ms Robinson argued that RJ Reynolds neglected to inform consumers of the dangers of smoking tobacco. This negligence, the lawyers said, led to her husband Michael Johnson Sr becoming a victim to lung cancer from smoking after becoming “addicted” and failing numerous attempts to quit.
“RJ Reynolds took a risk by manufacturing cigarettes and selling them to consumers without properly informing them of the harm,” Ms Robinson’s lawyer Willie Gary said. “We hope that this verdict will send a message to RJ Reynolds and other big tobacco companies that will force them to stop putting the lives of innocent people in danger,” he added.
RJ Reynolds plans to appeal against the court’s decision, vice president and assistant general counsel Jeffery Raborn said in a statement. “This verdict goes far beyond reasonableness and fairness, and is completely in disagreement with the evidence presented,” he said. “We plan to file post-trial motions with the trial court right away, and are confident that the court will follow the law and not allow this runaway verdict to stand.”
The punitive damages awarded to Ms Robinson were said to be the largest of any individual case coming from a class action lawsuit charged in Florida. Several similar cases have resulted in smaller payouts after the state’s highest court ruled that smokers and their families only had to prove addiction and that smoking caused their illness.
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