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LAKELAND, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - A Florida appeals court recently upheld a $3.5 million verdict against R.J. Reynolds over the smoking-related death of a woman but acknowledged its decision conflicted with another appeals court that would have limited punitive damages under a 1999 law.
The conflict could mean another trip to the Florida Supreme Court for the so-called Engle progeny cases, which are named after a 2006 decision in which the state’s high court dismantled a tobacco class action but allowed thousands of individual plaintiffs to use the findings from earlier trials as proof in their own lawsuits.
Janice Durrance Jones and Julian Dale Durrance filed a wrongful death claim against the tobacco company after their mother Dorothy died of coronary obstructive pulmonary disease in 2000. Since she was diagnosed with lung disease before November 1996, she belonged to the Engle class and was entitled to assert findings of liability against the industry as proof in her own case.
With most elements of their cases accepted as proven under the doctrine of res judicata, Engle plaintiffs merely have to show they were injured by smoking to proceed to damages. But Florida amended its punitive damages law in 1999, limiting awards in most cases to four times actual damages or $2 million. The jury in the Durrance case awarded $3.25 million in punitives.
The Second District Court of Appeal upheld the higher amount of punitive damages despite the 1999 law, reasoning in a March 3 decision that the late Dorothy Durrance was a member of the Engle class as of 1996 and so the pre-reform law applied. Florida’s Fourth and First districts have ruled the same way.
But the appeals court acknowledged that decision is in direct conflict with a 2019 decision by the Fifth District, which held that the 1999 damages statute applies to all wrongful death claims that arose after the law was passed. That decision cites the language of the statute, which says it applies to all causes of action arising after its effective date." The Fifth Division, in that decision, said the Second Division conflated “manifestation” of a claim with “accrual,” and a wrongful-death claim accrues upon death.
The decision was written by Judge Robert Morris, who noted the conflict and said the decision was not final until the deadline for rehearing had passed. Judge Edward LaRose joined in the opinion and Judge Matthew Lucas concurred in the result only.