Florida Court Rules For Ex-Smoker

The Florida Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a lower court was wrong to overturn a $750,000 award for a former smoker against the third largest cigarette maker in the United States.

The decision reinstates the award against Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp. to Grady Carter, said Carter's lawyer Floyd Matthews.

The Grady case marked only the second time in 40 years of anti-smoking litigation that a tobacco company had been ordered to pay damages. The first award — $400,000 to the family of Rose Cipollone of New Jersey in 1988 — was overturned on appeal, and the lawsuit was later dropped.

Carter, 70, sued Brown and Williamson in 1995, blaming the company for the lung cancer he developed after smoking for 44 years. A jury ruled that cigarettes were a defective product and that their makers were negligent for not warning people of the danger.

An appeals court reversed the award nearly two years later, saying Carter had waited too long to go to court. It also said the jury award could not stand because of a 1969 federal law that bars lawsuits claiming the wording of the cigarette warning label is inadequate.

In a 5-0 ruling, Florida's high court disagreed with both conclusions and said the district court had overstepped its role.

"Accordingly, we quash the district court's decision in this case," Justice Major Harding wrote for the court.

Carter, a retired air traffic controller, called the ruling a "great decision."

"I felt all along it was a good case," he said.

Carter started smoking Lucky Strikes when he was 16 and smoked them for 25 years before he switched brands in 1972. He tried to quit several times but never could — until he coughed up blood in January 1991.

A few weeks later, he learned he had cancer.

A Brown and Williamson lawyer said the company was considering whether to ask the court to reconsider. The Louisville, Kentucky, company could also go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

John Finley said in a statement that the ruling was "in direct conflict with the United States Supreme Court decision in the Cipollone case."

Brown and Williamson is a subsidiary of British American Tobacco. Its brands include Kool, Capri, Raleigh, Viceroy, Carlton, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall.

Two years ago, a jury ordered Brown and Williamson to pay nearly $1 million to the family of a deceased smoker. It was the first time a jury awarded punitive damages in a tobacco liability case. That verdict also was overturned. The decision was appealed and is awaiting a trial date.

Last summer, a class-action lawsuit in Miami produced a record $145 billion verdict, which was upheld two weeks ago by a judge. The case still faces a prolonged appeals process in state courts by Brown and Williamson and four other major cigarette companies.