Loser Pays Laws in Fl Has Smoker with Lung Cancer Dropping Lawsuit
A man from Fort Lauderdale is a former Florida smoker with lung cancer. He, like thousands of other Floridians, have filed lawsuits against Big Tobacco in Florida for hiding the dangers of smoking, and in fact, promoting smoking as something that was good for your health. Years later, when people were addicted and could not stop smoking, the dangers were revealed.
But has dropped his lawsuit against tobacco giant Philip Morris USA. Instead, he has accepted a $1,000 settlement against Big Tobacco. In his case, the fear of having to pay the legal fees of Philip Morris outweighed the risk of going to trial and losing. Two smokers recently had to pay the company $100,000 and $30,000.
When the Engle class action lawsuit against tobacco companies was decertified along with its $145 billion damage award, individuals were free to file their own cases. That meant that about 4,000 cases were filed in state court and about 4,000 in federal court. In the first case filed by the family of a man and a Florida jury awarded $8 million to his widow.
Based on the original Engle findings, the Florida Supreme court decided to reinstate a portion of the decision determined by the class. As a matter of fact these answers have been determined by Engle – that smoking causes certain diseases, that cigarettes are addictive, that cigarettes are defective and unreasonably dangerous, that tobacco companies conspired to conceal or omit information regarding the health effects of cigarette smoking or the addictive nature of smoking cigarettes and that they lied about cigarettes.
Philip Morris USA, a unit of Altria Group Inc. has vowed to fight the cases.
Source article: http://www.wtop.com/?sid=1818194&nid=111
