TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Legal Newsline) – A 1999 tort reform measure applies to tobacco wrongful death cases of smokers who died after, even though a class action on their behalf had been filed years before.
Valton Sheffield’s lung cancer was diagnosed in 1994 and thus, despite surviving another 13 years, a law that took effect in 1999 will limit the amount of punitive damages his widow can recover, says a Nov. 18 decision by the Florida Supreme Court.
The 1999 law limits punitives to four times the compensatory damages award up to $2 million, and the ruling is bad news for plaintiffs lawyers hoping to take R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris and other tobacco companies to the cleaners.
For example, Sheffield’s widow recovered $5 million in punitive damages in his case. Now, she will go back to the trial court for a new trial on punitive damages.
The case is an Engle progeny. Engle was a class action filed in the 1990s on behalf of smokers that netted a huge verdict, but it was struck down in 2006. However, the liability findings against the tobacco companies were preserved as individuals were allowed to pursue their own cases afterward, as long as they filed by 2007.
Sheffield was a member of the class. The primary argument his widow made was that in 1994, when he was diagnosed, he had fully mature causes of action that were pursued by the Engle class and then by her, so the 1999 amendments didn’t apply to her.
“We disagree,” Chief Justice Charles Canady wrote. “Because our caselaw establishes that wrongful death actions are distinct from personal injury actions and that there can be no wrongful death ‘cause of action’ absent a death, we conclude that the causes of action here arose when Mr. Sheffield passed away in 2007 and are thus plainly governed by the 1999 amendments.”
The decision settles conflicting lower court rulings and upset Justice Jorge Labarga, who feels Engle progeny cases should be treated differently.
“Engle progeny wrongful death actions are… continuations of the Engle litigation,” he wrote. “(T)he majority treats Engle progeny cases as entirely new actions with entirely new trials.
“But it is clear these cases do not begin the litigation anew; the plaintiffs’ claims cannot be untethered from the class complaint, the (liability) findings, or the substantive law underlying both.”