If you want to go after the country’s five largest tobacco and blame them for your health problems, you must your case by tomorrow to capitalize on a Florida Supreme Court ruling.
The Sun-Sentinel reports:
In July 2000, a Miami-Dade County jury leveled a $145 billion damages verdict — thought to be the largest punitive award in American legal history — against Philip Morris Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard Tobacco and Liggett Group Inc.
The state Supreme Court tossed out the monetary award, but affirmed the jury’s conclusions that the companies misrepresented the addictive nature of cigarettes and concealed the health dangers.
The court ruled that ill smokers and the families of deceased smokers covered under the class-action case had to file individual lawsuits to seek damages and the Miami-Dade jury’s 1999 findings about the health risks of cigarettes already would be legally established when the plaintiffs walked into the courtroom.
Read: Friday is Florida’s deadline for smokers to sue Big Tobacco for health problems