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Florida Jury Awards $30 Million to Widow of Smoker

June 4, 2009  ·  By HM&M

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As a Chicago personal injury lawyer I am very pleased to see that after decades of marketing their addictive cancer causing products to children, tobacco companies are feeling the pain a fully informed jury can inflict.

Consider this recent verdict in Florida:

The AP (6/2) reports, “A Florida jury awarded $30 million to a Pensacola widow in a ruling against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco.” This is one of the first cases to be tried since the 2006 Florida Supreme Court Ruling that “threw out a massive class-action award to thousands of smokers and required the cases be proved individually.”

Benny Martin died of lung cancer in 1995 after being a longtime smoker. He began smoking “20 years before cigarettes had warning labels.” According to attorneys for “Benny Martin… the tobacco company conspired to make its products more addictive to customers and withheld information about the dangers of smoking.”

Such deceptive tactics are targeted by the new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory legislation that will, if passed, give the FDA a wide array of new powers to regulate the tobacco industry. These new powers include the ability to regulate the marketing and advertising of tobacco products.

June 4, 2009

Dangerous Drop Side Cribs To Be Discontinued

Chicago Tribune encouraged by manufacturer's decision to stop making drop-side cribs. The Chicago Tribune (3/28) editorialized, “Drop-side cribs, with a movable rail that can be raised and lowered, are a staple of baby rooms.” However, “they probably won't be for much longer” because “major crib manufacturers have agreed to stop making them.” The Tribune said... Read More

June 4, 2009

Massey Ruling Said to Highlight Problems With Judicial Elections

The Wall Street Journal (6/10, Koppel) reports, “The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week calling for judges” to recuse themselves from “cases involving big political donors confronts the growing role of money in the U.S. judicial system.” The Journal adds, “Political donations to judicial candidates at the highest state courts have soared in recent years,... Read More

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