When, last November, the American tobacco industry reached a settlement to pay $206 billion towards the cost of treating smoking-induced illnesses, a significant legal milestone was passed in the United States' public battle against the ravages of the smoking habit, even though the settlement also barred individual states from suing to recoup the costs of treating sick smokers. Many thought that the industry had got off lightly with a mere $206 billion.
Another legal milestone was passed last week when a class action taken in a Florida court by nine damaged smokers resulted in the jury finding that five major tobacco companies were responsible for deaths and illness from more than 20 diseases linked with smoking and, further, that the companies had conspired to hide both the dangers and the addictiveness of smoking. This was the first class action to have proved successful for the plaintiffs in American courts.
It need hardly be pointed out that the tobacco producers - Philip Morris, R J Reynolds, Brown and Williamson (a subsidiary of British American Tobacco), Lorillard and the Liggett Group - are expected to appeal the jury's verdict. There may have been only nine plaintiffs in the case, but it is presumed that their cases represent a precedent under which somewhere around 500,000 other Florida families will sue the same companies for damages on behalf of themselves or dead relatives who suffered from any of the diseases listed in the Miami court. The jury in that court (where the case has run already for the best part of a year) must now award compensatory and punitive damages to the nine plaintiffs and it appears likely that the tobacco companies will file their appeals as soon as the first amounts of damages are awarded.
According to various newspaper reports, the cumulative damages which could be awarded in the State of Florida to the estimated half a million smokers damaged by their habit could run to somewhere between $300 billion and $500 billion against the tobacco industry, which would make last November's settlement small beer indeed. It may be assumed, in addition, that similar actions will be taken in many of the other states in the US, although in class actions attempted in at least two other states federal judges have declined to give individual litigants collective class action status in actions against tobacco companies. Meanwhile, in Canada, the Ontario provincial government is seeking to sue the tobacco industry for damages under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisation Act, and the British Columbia government has filed a suit against Canadian tobacco companies.
And still the tobacco industry continues to behave as if in a state of denial. Its lawyers in the Miami court had tried to argue that, on the one hand, there was no scientific proof that smoking caused any illnesses and, on the other hand, that the public was well aware that smoking was risky. Small wonder that the successful plaintiffs and their families were seen to embrace and rejoice after the Miami jury delivered its verdict. Small wonder that one of their lawyers had described the behaviour of the tobacco companies as "a rampant and cynical long-standing pattern of fraud". Pending the industry's appeal against the Miami judgment, there will be much in the jury's verdict to encourage those on this side of the Atlantic who are preparing cases against tobacco companies here to sue for the damage that smoking has done to them or to their family members. And, who knows, maybe that appeal will fail, although it has to be said that, in recent times, the industry has tended to do better than plaintiffs in the higher American courts. But maybe the times are changing.