TAMPA, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - A major punitive damages award for a smoker's estate that sued Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco should be reduced, a Florida appeals court has ruled.
The Second District made that decision May 5 in the case of Douglas Clarence Duignan, who died in 1992 from lung cancer. The lawsuit is one of Florida's Engle cases - litigation that once proceeded in a class action but was later broken into individual lawsuits.
Duignan's estate pursued wrongful death litigation against the tobacco giants in Pinellas County. The first trial ended with $6 million in compensatory damages and $6 million in punitive damages, with the compensatory amount reduced by $2 million when the jury found Duignan 33% at fault for his injuries.
But the defendants said the court erred in giving a jury instruction that did not require the plaintiff to show Duignan relied on a statement by the tobacco companies when alleging fraud.
The Second District found a proper jury instruction needed a finding that information concealed by tobacco companies was important to Duignan's decision to begin or continue smoking and ordered a new trial.
The next jury said Duignan was addicted to cigarettes because of nicotine and that the companies had withheld information on its addictive properties. It awarded $2.75 million in compensatory damages, which would be reduced by 30% to account for Duignan's fault.
The punitive damages award ballooned to $24 million - $12 million against each defendant.
In a separate Engle case, the Florida Supreme Court then found the plaintiff needed to prove reliance on a statement that concealed or omitted material information about the health effects or addictiveness or smoking cigarettes.
It also granted review of the second Duignan verdict in light of this finding. It quashed the Duignan decision and ordered the Second District to take another look.
The two sides disagree on what the next step should be. The defendants wanted a complete new trial on all claims and, at the very least, a new trial on punitive damages.
The plaintiff wanted the Second District to reduce the compensatory damages award by Duignan's share of fault and leave the rest intact. The court ordered a new trial on the issues of entitlement and punitive damages and instructed the trial court to reduce the amount of compensatory damages based on Duignan's comparative fault.
"In determining the amount of punitive damages, the jury was instructed to consider evidence presented during the first phase and the misconduct that caused harm to Douglas," the decision says.
"In closing arguments in both phases, the Estate argued that in deciding punitive damages, the jury should rely on evidence that was introduced relating to the fraud claims. In addition, the jury awarded $12 million against each tobacco company, when the Estate asked only for an award of $9,479,452 in punitive damages against each tobacco company.
"For these reasons, we cannot say that the punitive damages determinations were not affected by the error on the fraud claims."