The U.S. Supreme Court refused today to hear an appeal by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co in the Pensacola, Florida case in which the company was ordered in 2009 to pay $28.3 million to Mathilde Martin, whose husband Benny died of lung cancer after decades of smoking Lucky Strike cigarettes.The jury in the trial had found that Reynolds was 66 percent responsible for his death and that Martin, who started smoking in the 1940s before cigarette packages had health warnings, was 34 percent responsible.
Martin was represented by the Levin Papantonio law firm.