Yahoo – AFP,
19 July 20`14
 |
A Florida
state jury has ordered the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company to pay
$23.6 billion in
punitive damages to the wife of a longtime smoker who died
of lung cancer, her
attorneys said (AFP Photo/Denis Charlet)
|
Miami (AFP)
- A Florida jury has ordered RJ Reynolds tobacco to pay $23.6 billion to the
wife of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer in a verdict seen as one of
the largest for a single plaintiff in state history.
In addition
to the punitive damages, Friday's verdict also awarded more than $16 million in
compensatory damages to the estate of Michael Johnson Sr.
During the
four-week trial, lawyers for Johnson's widow Cynthia Robinson argued that the
RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company was negligent in informing consumers of the dangers
of consuming tobacco and thus led to Johnson contracting lung cancer from
smoking cigarettes.
They said
Johnson had become "addicted" to cigarettes and failed multiple
attempts to quit smoking.
The
Escambia County jury returned its verdict after some 15 hours of deliberations.
"RJ
Reynolds took a calculated risk by manufacturing cigarettes and selling them to
consumers without properly informing them of the hazards," Robinson's
lawyer Willie Gary said in a statement.
"As a
result of their negligence, my client's husband suffered from lung cancer and
eventually lost his life.
"We
hope that this verdict will send a message to RJ Reynolds and other big tobacco
companies that will force them to stop putting the lives of innocent people in
jeopardy."
RJ Reynolds
plans to appeal the court decision and verdict, vice president and assistant
general counsel J. Jeffery Raborn said.
The
landmark award was "far beyond the realm of reasonableness and
fairness," he charged in a statement.
Reynolds is
"confident that the court will follow the law and not allow this runaway
verdict to stand," Raborn added, calling the damages "grossly
excessive and impermissible under state and constitutional law."
Cancer,
mergers and e-cigarettes
Smoking
remains the leading preventable cause of premature death in the United States,
killing nearly half a million Americans each year, health experts say.
Some 18
percent of Americans now smoke, down from 42 percent in the 1960s.
The RJ
Reynolds court verdict comes only days after its parent company, Reynolds
American, announced it would acquire rival Lorillard to create a behemoth aimed
at conquering the growing e-cigarette market.
Recent
growth in e-cigarettes, which deliver nicotine in a vapor rather than smoke,
comes as conventional cigarette sales drop amid tight consumer spending and
health concerns.
The deal
could remake the US tobacco market, one of the world's most important with
annual sales of more than $90 billion in 2013, according to research house
Euromonitor.
With
tobacco smoke claiming a life every six seconds, the tar-free, electronic
alternative could help prevent much of the cancer, heart and lung disease and
strokes caused by the toxins in traditional cigarettes, a group of 50 doctors
and policy experts told the World Health Organization in May.
In January
the United States marked the 50th anniversary of the first surgeon general's
report warning that smoking caused lung cancer.
Since then,
the habit has been attributed to 13 kinds of cancer and a host of other
diseases, including liver and colon cancer, blindness and diabetes.
Related Article:
"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy,Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) -(Text version)
“… The Shift in Human Nature
You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.
In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?
Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.
What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …”
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