Smoking Issues

Smoking Issues

OpinionJournal - Featured Article

One hundred and forty-five billion dollars! It was the biggest punitive damage award in U.S. history--and it resulted from a "fundamentally unfair" trial in which plaintiffs' lawyers "succeeded in inflaming the jury's passions," most notably through "egregious" appeals to racial sentiment, to the point that its members "ran amuck." That's what a unanimous state appeals court said on Wednesday when it struck down the award--$145 billion!--against the tobacco industry purportedly on behalf of all sick smokers in the state of Florida.

The decision isn't the final word on the much-hyped Engle class action, since appeal to the Florida Supreme Court is likely. But Wall Street cheered, bidding up tobacco stocks by more than 10%. And other businesspeople should take note, since defendants in other industries are only too vulnerable to the tactics and techniques justly rebuked by the appeals court this week.