DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Legal Newsline) – A trial judge will either reduce a $16 million punitive damages award or order a new trial on the issue as a result of a Florida appellate court ruling in a tobacco case.
On Oct. 23, the Fifth District affirmed R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company’s liability in the wrongful death lawsuit of a longtime smoker but decided the punitive damages award was excessive in proportion to the $150,000 compensatory damages award.
The case of Lois Stucky is one of the Engle progeny cases in which smokers in Florida were allowed to pursue lawsuits against the tobacco industry. Stucky died at 52 years old of small cell lung cancer after smoking Winstons and Dorals for the previous 35 years.
The original compensatory damages award was $300,000 but was cut in half to account for Stucky’s own fault. But the jury still walloped RJR with the $16 million punitive damages award - $6 million more than plaintiffs attorneys requested.
“There is no bright-line ratio by which a punitive damages award may be judged,” the decision says, noting the 106-to-1 ratio to the compensatory award.
“Indeed, we acknowledge the flaws extant in a system as imprecise as that given for the review of a punitive damages award that calls for a balance of the punitive damages award against the damages and harm suffered.
“But, we will not ‘throw up our hands in frustration just because the exercise is so imprecise.’”
Stucky’s estate proved RJR acted with “reprehensibility” but that the award was excessive under federal due process restraints.
This leaves Judge Renee Roche in Orange County to either slash the award to something more appropriate or order a new trial on only the punitive damages issue.