The settlement will resolve all remaining personal injury, consumer class action, and government entity cases brought in the national MDL and the JCCP in California against Altria (the earlier phase of the vast litigation ended in late 2022 when JUUL entered into four substantial coordinated settlements with all plaintiff parties).

The settlement includes over 8,500 personal injury cases, and over 1,400 government entity cases, and a massive class of consumers. “The scope of these suits is beyond vast,” noted Sarah R. London, Co-Lead Counsel for Plaintiffs in the litigation. “This settlement, in combination with the earlier JUUL settlements, marks a stunning and complete resolution of the JUUL/Altria litigation, and adds substantial additional compensation for victims and their families, get real funds to schools for abatement programs, and help local governments further prevent youth use of e-cigarettes across America.”

May 10, 2023, San Francisco—(BUSINESSWIRE)—Plaintiffs’ Co-Lead Counsel announce a comprehensive and historic $235 million settlement with Altria in the sprawling nationwide JUUL e-cigarette youth vaping predatory advertising, fraud, addiction and injury litigation currently facing bellwether trial in San Francisco. The settlement will resolve all remaining personal injury, consumer class action, and government entity cases brought in the national MDL and the JCCP in California against Altria (the earlier phase of the vast litigation ended in late 2022 when JUUL entered into four coordinated settlements with all plaintiff parties).

“To call this global settlement with Altria momentous is an understatement,” states Lieff Cabraser partner Sarah R. London, Co-Lead Counsel for Plaintiffs in the litigation. “Unprecedented in speed of attainment, scope, and impact, it will provide extraordinary and truly meaningful relief for youth, parents, and governmental organizations nationwide in a comprehensive resolution that avoids the delay of further trial and possible appeals, bringing closure to litigation brought on behalf of children, teens, young adults, parents, schools, health departments, and really, on behalf of everyone across the nation. This is an extraordinary outcome. We could not be more proud of the courage, resolution and persistence of our clients, and are delighted with this superlative result.”

Together with the earlier settlements with JUUL in the federal multidistrict litigation captioned In re: Juul Labs, Inc., Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2913, and the coordinated proceeding captioned Juul Labs Product Cases, JCCP No. 5052, the settlements with Altria (nee Philip Morris) announced today will directly address youth use of e-cigarettes nationwide.

The Altria settlement follows four years of hard-fought litigation in both state and federal court. Co-Lead Counsel believe that resolving the litigation against Altria and its officers and directors through settlement is categorically in the best interests of all plaintiffs. The settlement builds on Plaintiffs’ earlier successful efforts to hold Juul itself accountable, and will provide monetary relief as well as continuing mandatory changes to Juul/Altria’s marketing and other practices, including prohibitions on youth marketing and the sale of flavors not authorized by the FDA.

The Altria settlement brings a final resolution to the personal injury, consumer class action, and government entity cases brought in the MDL and the JCCP brought on behalf of children and families everywhere in the U.S.

This last-shoe-dropping settlement in the JUUL e-cigarette youth harm cases will provide meaningful compensation to people suffering from nicotine addiction and other injuries, and will further remunerate consumers who purchased JUUL products as well as providing new and much-needed resources to school districts, cities, and counties to abate youth nicotine addiction in their communities.

The Altria settlements include over 8,500 personal injury cases, and over 1,400 government entity cases, and a massive class of consumers. “The scope of these suits is beyond vast,” London also notes. “This settlement, in combination with the earlier JUUL settlements, marks a stunning and complete resolution of the JUUL/Altria litigation, and adds substantial additional compensation for victims and their families, get real funds to schools for abatement programs, and help local governments further prevent youth use of e-cigarettes across America.”

Next Steps

The Court will hold a hearing in the near future to review the proposed class settlement. If the settlement receives preliminary approval, a Class Settlement Administrator will be appointed to structure and initiate a formal claims process. At that time, the Class Settlement Administrator will notify class members about their rights under the Settlement. Concurrently, a claims process will begin for the Personal Injury and Government Entity settlements.

Source/Contact

Sarah London
LIEFF CABRASER HEIMANN & BERNSTEIN, LLP
275 Battery Street, Fl. 29
San Francisco, CA 94111
Telephone: (415) 956-1000
Email: slondon (at) lchb.com

The AAJ reports that the Eleventh Circuit has found in favor of the plaintiff in an Engle progeny tobacco injury lawsuit against cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris, holding that a punitive damages award of over $20 million was constitutionally appropriate and not unconstitutionally excessive, as the defendants had repeatedly argued after losing the original injury trial in 2013.

Philip Morris appealed the $20 million punitive damages award, arguing that it violated the due process clause by “imposing a grossly excessive punishment on a tortfeasor” and that the award would not deter future wrongdoing. The Court disagreed, finding ample support under the three “guideposts” the U.S. Supreme Court has set forth for evaluating punitive damages awards: the reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct, the ratio of compensatory and punitive damages, and how the punitive damages compare to civil penalties awarded in comparable cases.

Lieff Cabraser partner Kenny Byrd, who represented Ms. Berger, told the AAJ that “sadly, she died while the case was on appeal. But the result is a testament to the pain and suffering and loss that she long endured and also to the courage and grit she showed in bringing her case to trial. Mrs. Berger began smoking at about 13 or 14. The jury awarded $20,760,000.14 in punitive damages. The 14 cents is a powerful reminder to all of us about how young the victims of cigarette addiction are when they begin smoking. Roughly 90% of those who become daily smokers begin smoking before 18. The tobacco industry knew this and exploited it to make life-long customers. In trying to blame Mrs. Berger during the trial, they effectively were blaming a young teenage girl. The jury, thankfully, understood that. New industries now seek to addict our children to nicotine and other substances through the same scheme with new mechanisms.”

Byrd concluded, “We must fight them as well — and fight them, we will.”

About Kenny Byrd

A partner in our Nashville office, Kenny Byrd represents clients in mass tort cases, defective product cases and consumer fraud litigation. He is a leader in groundbreaking national litigation filed on behalf of Tennessee governments and taxpayers, among many others, against opioid manufacturers and distributors in the wake of the ongoing national opioids crisis. Kenny also serves on the Early Vetting Committee in the nationwide product defect lawsuit against 3M relating to allegations that for over a decade, 3M provided defective earplugs to men and women in the U.S. military.

In 2013 and 2014, Kenny was the lead trial attorney in obtaining several substantial jury verdicts for smokers and their families, including a $27 million jury verdict and a $41 million jury verdict. These verdicts were ranked by The National Law Journal among the Top 100 Verdicts of 2014 and paved the way to a $100 million global settlement with Big Tobacco in 2015 on behalf of hundreds of gravely injured smokers in Florida, the first smoker cases group settlement by the cigarette companies in history.

Plaintiff’s counsel and Lieff Cabraser partner Kenneth Byrd noted that his client tragically died while the case was still on appeal. “But the result today is not only a testament to the pain and suffering and loss that she long endured, but also to the courage and grit she showed in bringing her case to trial,” Byrd said. “Mrs. Berger began smoking around age 13 or 14. The jury awarded $20,760,000.14 in punitive damages. The 14 cents is a powerful reminder to all of us about how young the victims of cigarette addiction are when they begin smoking. Roughly 90% of those who become daily smokers begin smoking before the age of 18.”

In 2014, Lieff Cabraser won a trial verdict against Philip Morris on behalf of Berger, who started using cigarettes at age 14. The jury awarded compensation in the amount of $6.25 million, then added an additional $20,760,000.14 in punitive damages against the cigarette maker. The last fourteen cents of the verdict were intended as a deliberate admonition to Philip Morris reflecting the age at which Mrs. Berger began the smoking addiction that would lead to her death, an unmistakable and stark reminder of the fact that Philip Morris and companies like it relied on ensnaring children through disinformation and improper ad barrages intended to keep their deadly business thriving.

After the 2014 verdict, the trial judge substantially undercut the claims at the defendants’ urging, reducing the compensatory award to $3.75 million and eliminating the punitive damages award, hoping the parties would settle. Instead, Philip Morris appealed the reduced judgment and plaintiffs’ cross-appealed the vacatur of the fraud.  In 2018, a ruling was granted in the plaintiffs’ favor but rather than pay up, as usual Philip Morris challenged the punitive damage awards as excessive.

About Kenny Byrd

A partner in our Nashville office, Kenny Byrd represents clients in mass tort cases, defective product cases and consumer fraud litigation. He is a leader in groundbreaking national litigation filed on behalf of Tennessee governments and taxpayers, among many others, against opioid manufacturers and distributors in the wake of the ongoing national opioids crisis. Kenny also serves on the Early Vetting Committee in the nationwide product defect lawsuit against 3M relating to allegations that for over a decade, 3M provided defective earplugs to men and women in the U.S. military.

In 2013 and 2014, Kenny was the lead trial attorney in obtaining several substantial jury verdicts for smokers and their families, including a $27 million jury verdict and a $41 million jury verdict. These verdicts were ranked by The National Law Journal among the Top 100 Verdicts of 2014 and paved the way to a $100 million global settlement with Big Tobacco in 2015 on behalf of hundreds of gravely injured smokers in Florida, the first smoker cases group settlement by the cigarette companies in history.

In 2014, Lieff Cabraser won a trial verdict against Philip Morris on behalf of Berger, who started using cigarettes at age 14. The jury awarded compensation in the amount of $6.25 million, then added an additional $20,760,000.14 in punitive damages against the cigarette maker. The last fourteen cents of the verdict were intended as a deliberate admonition to Philip Morris reflecting the age at which Mrs. Berger began the smoking addiction that would lead to her death, an unmistakable and stark reminder of the fact that Philip Morris and companies like it relied on ensnaring children through disinformation and improper ad barrages intended to keep their deadly business thriving.

After the 2014 verdict, the trial judge substantially undercut the claims at the defendants’ urging, reducing the compensatory award to $3.75 million and eliminating the punitive damages award, hoping the parties would settle. Instead, Philip Morris appealed the reduced judgment and plaintiffs’ cross-appealed the vacatur of the fraud.  In 2018, a ruling was granted in the plaintiffs’ favor but rather than pay up, as usual Philip Morris challenged the punitive damage awards as excessive.

“Today the court of appeals affirmed that the amount of punitive damages the jury awarded was not excessive. The Berger jury’s $20 million punitive damage verdict remains among the largest in an Engle case, but the Court held that the amount did not violate due process,” Lieff Cabraser partner Robert J. Nelson said in a statement. “Sadly, Mrs. Berger died while the case was on appeal, but the result today is not only a testament to the pain and suffering and loss that she long endured, but also to the courage and grit she showed in bringing her case to trial.”

Read the full article on the Law360 website.

Lieff Cabraser’s Work on Behalf of Injured Smokers and Their Families

Lieff Cabraser represents Florida smokers, and the spouses and families of loved ones who died, in litigation against the tobacco companies for their 50-year conspiracy to conceal the hazards of smoking and the addictive nature of cigarettes.

On February 25th, 2015, a settlement was reached on behalf of more than 400 Florida smoker lawsuits against the major cigarette companies Philip Morris USA Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, and Lorillard Tobacco Company. As a part of the settlement, the companies will collectively pay $100 million to injured smokers or their families.

Lieff Cabraser attorneys tried over 20 cases in Florida federal court against the tobacco industry on behalf of individual smokers or their estates, and with co-counsel obtained over $105 million in judgments for our clients. Two of the jury verdicts Lieff Cabraser attorneys obtained in the litigation were ranked by The National Law Journal among the Top 100 Verdicts of 2014.

Lieff Cabraser and its co-counsel, Zwerling Schachter & Zwerling LLP, have filed a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of California on behalf of the California Yurok Tribe against JUUL and Altria for violations of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) and California negligence and nuisance laws. The Complaint in the lawsuit alleges the companies’ efforts to maximize profits through the creation and native-youth-targeted marketing of its new electronic nicotine delivery product predictably led to an epidemic of teen addiction within the Yurok Tribe, the social and economic costs of which were shouldered by the Tribe as the government entity responsible for the public health and safety of the local population.

“The Yurok Tribe is the largest federally-recognized tribe in California,” notes Lieff Cabraser partner Eric B. Fastiff, who filed the suit on behalf of the Tribe, “and its ability to carry out essential public health functions has been, and continues to be, profoundly threatened by the e-cigarette health epidemic that JUUL and Altria’s actions have created.”

The Complaint alleges that JUUL and Altria designed electronic cigarette products to create and sustain addiction, particularly among young people, coupled those dangerous products with native-youth-targeted marketing programs intended to create an entire new generation of nicotine-addicted customers, and thrived due to extensive and successful efforts to delay any meaningful regulation of their products.

The Complaint further notes that the JUUL epidemic disproportionately impacts Native American and Alaska Native communities and young members of tribes across the U.S. “Though nationwide in its scope, the effect of the health crisis created by JUUL and Altria is exacerbated by numerous factors specific to Native American communities, including historical trauma, high poverty, deficient health care services, and lack of adequate housing, all of which make tribal communities particularly susceptible to health problems.”

“I’ve spent most of my career successfully fighting the tobacco companies for their lethal practices,” notes Lieff Cabraser partner Kenneth Byrd, who also represents the Tribe, “and having them resume their child-centered addiction efforts via a slick new technology was something we thought our efforts through the 1990s and 2000s would prevent.”

The Complaint alleges that JUUL and Altria specifically and deceptively targeted and exploited Native American communities with its highly addictive and damaging products. It sought to implement “switching programs” and sales partnerships with numerous tribes by directly seeking to take advantage of a vulnerable American Indian population with its deceptive and misleading sales and marketing practices. JUUL and Altria created this e-cigarette health epidemic for their own financial gain, causing Indian tribes across the United States, and the geographic area surrounding the Yurok Tribe in particular, to be flooded with JUUL products, creating an environment where these products and their use and abuse are rampant.

The Yurok Tribe seeks injunctive relief, abatement, and damages arising out of the injuries to its members, property, and employees caused by JUUL’s and Altria’s wrongful conduct in the marketing and sale of their JUUL products.

In addition to the RICO claims, the lawsuit includes causes of action for negligence, negligence per se, and violations of California public nuisance law. The suit seeks orders enjoining JUUL and Altria from engaging in further actions violating the law, and actual, compensatory, and statutory damages, as well as equitable relief to fund prevention education and addiction treatment.

Source/Contact

Eric B. Fastiff
Mark P. Chalos
Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP
efastiff@lchb.com, mchalos@lchb.com
144.202.114.179

September 15, 2020, Denver, Colorado—(BUSINESSWIRE)—Lieff Cabraser announces that it has filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Colorado against JUUL and Altria on behalf of the Boulder Valley School District for violations of Colorado law and of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) as well as negligence and nuisance laws relating to the companies’ creation and youth-targeted marketing of a new nicotine delivery product to maximize profits through addiction.

The complaint in the lawsuit alleges that JUUL and Altria designed electronic cigarette products to create and sustain addiction, particularly among young people, and coupled those dangerous products with youth-targeted marketing programs intended to create an entire new generation of nicotine-addicted customers. The complaint further alleges that the companies’ work successfully caused more young people to start using e-cigarettes, creating a youth e-cigarette epidemic and public health crisis, and that the companies thrived due to extensive and successful efforts to delay meaningful regulation of their products.

“I have been disheartened to see students in the Boulder Valley School District and across our state targeted by these companies, especially knowing that they’re using the’ same deceptive advertising practices employed by tobacco companies for years. We, unfortunately, have been watching history repeat itself and Juul has been using the same playbook,” said BVSD Superintendent Dr. Rob Anderson. “Our campuses have been littered with the Juul pods and we have had students as young as fourth and fifth grade who have been treated for nicotine addiction related to vaping. This is not okay and we intend to do everything in our power to hold them accountable for the impact it has had on our students.”

“This is a horror sequel that never should have been made,” notes Lieff Cabraser partner Kenneth Byrd, who represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “I’ve spent most of my career successfully fighting the tobacco companies for their insidious and lethal practices, and a resurgence of their poison-vending with a renewed focus on children was something we thought our efforts through the 1990s and 2000s would prevent.”

Detailed allegations in the complaint note that JUUL and Altria created highly addictive e-cigarettes that were easy for young people and non-smokers to inhale, based on experiments that measured non-smokers’ “buzz” levels and perceptions of throat harshness; that JUUL’s e-cigarettes deliver substantially higher doses of nicotine that cigarettes; that JUUL and Altria knew the JUUL products were unnecessarily addictive because they delivered more nicotine than smokers needed or wanted; that JUUL’s design deliberately avoided the look and feel of a cigarette, making it attractive to non-smokers and easy for young people to use without detection; and that JUUL and Altria enticed newcomers to nicotine with kid-friendly flavors and without insuring the flavoring additives were safe for inhalation.

Coupled with a marketing scheme designed to mislead the public, including youth, into believing JUUL products contained less nicotine than they actually do and were healthy and safe, JUUL and Altria successfully sowed the seeds of a new public health crisis with a particularly insidious focus on youthful e-smokers.

“Our schools are on the front lines of the vaping catastrophe,” notes Lieff Cabraser partner Mark P. Chalos, who also represents the school district. “The vaping industry endangers our children and puts them at increased risk of lifelong addiction and potentially fatal illnesses. Now, with the added risk of COVID-19, these lawsuits are increasingly necessary to protect our children from the wrongdoers in the vaping industry.”

As the complaint outlines,

Further,

In addition to the RICO claims, the lawsuit includes causes of action for negligence, negligence per se, and violations of Colorado public nuisance law. The suit seeks orders enjoining the defendants from engaging in further actions violating the law, actual, compensatory, and statutory damages, and equitable relief to fund prevention education and addiction treatment.

Source/Contact

Mark P. Chalos
Kenneth S. Byrd
Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP
mchalos@lchb.com, kbyrd@lchb.com
144.202.114.179

Charles Sowers died in 1995 from lung cancer and in 2015, a Florida federal jury found R.J. Reynolds legally responsible in one of “thousands” of Engle progeny cases filed after the Florida Supreme Court in Engle v. Liggett Group Inc. overturned a $145 billion verdict for plaintiffs and decertified a class of Florida residents who had become sick or died from smoking, but allowed the individual plaintiffs to bring individual actions against the tobacco company without having to re-try the judgment finding R.J. Reynolds legally responsible for the tobacco-related injuries.

The judicial panel deciding the appeal was forthright in its criticism of Reynolds. In the wake of the tobacco giant’s arguing that the remanded trial must start from scratch (removing the previous finding of Reynolds’ liability/legal responsibility), the panel opined: “Actually, what the company wants to do is pressure the elderly widow, whose husband its products killed, out of exercising her right to seek punitive damages from it for that.” The first jury found Charles Sowers did become addicted to smoking cigarettes which resulted in his death from lung cancer, making him a member of the Engel Progeny class. However, the issue of whether or not the tobacco company intentionally knew it carried out wrongful conduct and continued on is still to be determined, which is what a remand jury will have to find in order to award punitive damages.

Andrew Kaufman of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP, who successfully briefed Sowers’ appeal, told Law360 he was “pleased with the ruling and looks forward to pursuing punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds.”

National Tobacco Injury Attorneys

Lieff Cabraser represents Florida smokers, and the spouses and families of loved ones who died, in litigation against the tobacco companies for their 50-year conspiracy to conceal the hazards of smoking and the addictive nature of cigarettes.

On February 25th, 2015, a settlement was reached on behalf of more than 400 Florida smoker lawsuits against the major cigarette companies Philip Morris USA Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, and Lorillard Tobacco Company. As a part of the settlement, the companies will collectively pay $100 million to injured smokers or their families.

Lieff Cabraser attorneys tried over 20 cases in Florida federal court against the tobacco industry on behalf of individual smokers or their estates, and with co-counsel obtained over $105 million in judgments for our clients. Two of the jury verdicts Lieff Cabraser attorneys obtained in the litigation were ranked by The National Law Journal among the Top 100 Verdicts of 2014.

The suit was originally filed on behalf of plaintiff Kenneth Kerrivan, a resident of Lake Panasoffkee, Florida, who in 1956 began smoking at the age of 14. Because of his addiction to nicotine from cigarettes, he developed severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in 1993. Mr. Kerrivan tried numerous options to quit smoking, including acupuncture, nicotine gum. and anti-smoking patches and was unsuccessful through 2006. Mr. Kerrivan now needs tank oxygen 24 hours a day.

At the trial, evidence was introduced showing that 90 percent of daily cigarette smokers start smoking as teenagers and that the tobacco industry targeted youth for this very reason. The earlier one takes up smoking, the more likely they are to become addicted and the stronger that addiction. Further evidence showed that defendants engaged in a multi-decade conspiracy to mislead the public about an insufficiency of proof that smoking cigarettes causes cancer and other diseases such as COPD.

“At trial, Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds sought to place the blame entirely on Mr. Kerrivan for becoming addicted to nicotine as a teenager in a time when the defendants widely marketed smoking cigarettes using celebrities and famous athletes and advertised on television shows popular with children and teenagers. Thankfully, the jury rejected this defense and held Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds accountable for their decision to target an entire generation of post-World War II American teenagers with a lifetime addiction to nicotine,” noted Lieff Cabraser partner Kenneth S. Byrd (lead counsel for the plaintiff) after the original trial.

“The cigarette industry argues that as Engle class members and their spouses die, their lawsuits die with them. We will continue working night and day to see that these class members get their day in Court.”

At the trial, Lieff Cabraser Nashville partner Kenneth S. Byrd served as lead counsel for the plaintiff and was assisted by Sarah London of Lieff Cabraser’s San Francisco office.

Lieff Cabraser’s Work on Behalf of Injured Smokers and Their Families

Lieff Cabraser represents Florida smokers, and the spouses and families of loved ones who died, in litigation against the tobacco companies for their 50-year conspiracy to conceal the hazards of smoking and the addictive nature of cigarettes. In 2015, a settlement was reached on behalf of more than 400 Florida smoker lawsuits against the major cigarette companies Philip Morris USA Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, and Lorillard Tobacco Company. As a part of the settlement, the companies will collectively pay $100 million to injured smokers or their families. Lieff Cabraser attorneys also tried over 20 cases in Florida federal court against the tobacco industry on behalf of individual smokers or their estates, and with co-counsel obtained over $105 million in judgments for our clients.

In 2014, Lieff Cabraser won a trial verdict against Philip Morris on behalf of Berger, who started using cigarettes at age 14. The jury awarded compensation in the amount of $6.25 million, then added an additional $20,760,000.14 in punitive damages against the cigarette maker. The last fourteen cents of the verdict were intended as a deliberate admonition to Philip Morris reflecting to the young age at which Mrs. Berger began the smoking that would lead to her death, an unmistakable and stark reminder of the fact that Philip Morris and companies like it relied on addicting children through disinformation and improper ad enticements to keep their deadly business thriving.

After the 2014 verdict, the trial judge substantially undercut the claims at the defendants’ urging, reducing the compensatory award to $3.75 million and eliminating the punitive damages award, hoping the parties would settle. Instead, Philip Morris appealed the reduced judgment and plaintiffs’ cross-appealed the vacatur of the fraud.  In 2018, a ruling was granted in the plaintiffs’ favor but rather than pay up, Philip Morris challenged the punitive damage awards as excessive.

As reported by Law360, in his recently issued 29-page order, U.S. District Judge James G. Carr of the middle district of Florida (by designation) chastised Philip Morris for its “rear-guard” motions for a new trial, denying the company’s arguments that the punitive damage award was excessive.

“Simply put: it is time for Philip Morris to pay the judgment,” Judge Carr wrote. “And [it] is time for its lawyers to tell it to do so.”

Law360 notes that Judge Carr also rejected Philip Morris’ argument that the punitive damages were not necessary because of new restrictions on cigarette companies intended to prevent similar behavior in the future, saying no previously existing law had successfully stopped Philip Morris’ past bad behavior.

“Fraudulent concealment has long been unlawful, but that did not stop Philip Morris from deceiving Congress, regulators and the public about the addictive and hazardous characteristics of cigarettes,” wrote Judge Carr. “Philip Morris offers no convincing reason why new legal restraints are guaranteed to prevent further intentional misconduct.”

Read Judge Carr’s full order.

Lieff Cabraser’s Work on Behalf of Injured Smokers and Their Families

Lieff Cabraser represents Florida smokers, and the spouses and families of loved ones who died, in litigation against the tobacco companies for their 50-year conspiracy to conceal the hazards of smoking and the addictive nature of cigarettes. In 2015, a settlement was reached on behalf of more than 400 Florida smoker lawsuits against the major cigarette companies Philip Morris USA Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, and Lorillard Tobacco Company. As a part of the settlement, the companies will collectively pay $100 million to injured smokers or their families. Lieff Cabraser attorneys also tried over 20 cases in Florida federal court against the tobacco industry on behalf of individual smokers or their estates, and with co-counsel obtained over $105 million in judgments for our clients.