Philip Morris USA Urges Florida Supreme Court To Uphold Lower Appellate Court Decision To...

NEW YORK -- Philip Morris USA today urged the Florida Supreme Court to affirm an earlier appellate court decision overturning the $145 billion judgment in the Engle class action and decertifying the class.

"The company's brief makes clear why the Engle case should never have been tried as a class action, and provides compelling reasons why Florida's Third District Court of Appeal was correct in ruling that the judgment should be overturned and the class decertified.

"The company believes the Florida Supreme Court should reach the same conclusion after oral argument on Nov. 3," said William S. Ohlemeyer, Philip Morris USA vice president and associate general counsel.

Last year the Third District Court of Appeal, in a 68-page opinion, reversed a $145 billion Dade County jury award for class-wide punitive damages and compensatory damage verdicts to three class representative finding.

"As discussed throughout this opinion, there are multiple sound legal bases why the result of this class action trial, including the punitive damages award, cannot be sustained," Philip Morris USA and other tobacco company defendants said in the brief.

Engle plaintiffs' attorneys Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt appealed the appellate court's decision to the Florida Supreme Court, which earlier this year agreed to hear the case.

In their brief to the Supreme Court, the companies said "the Third District's ruling vindicates bedrock principles of substantive law and due process that were systematically violated in the trial court" and that "the trial confirmed that plaintiffs' claims were inherently individualized and had been improperly forced into the class-action mold.

"In addition, the trial was irreparably tainted by plaintiffs' counsel, who deliberately incited jury nullification of the law through incendiary racial appeals and other unprofessional conduct. The result was an astronomical punitive award that lacked any discernible relationship to anyone's actual damages and was bankrupting on its face.

"Now, joined by their amici (friends of the court briefs), plaintiffs continue their campaign of legal nullification. They ask this Court to ignore the law and a myriad of trial errors because tobacco companies sell a dangerous product and therefore deserve to be punished by any means, regardless of the law."

In their appeal, "plaintiffs seek to override legal and constitutional rules that are fundamental to all 50 states" and the companies ask Florida Supreme Court to "reaffirm the principle that in Florida all litigants - including tobacco companies - are entitled to due process and a fair trial."

Engle plaintiffs now will have an opportunity to file another brief responding to the points raised by the tobacco companies. The Court has scheduled oral argument on the appeal for Nov. 3 in Tallahassee.

The Engle case was filed in 1994 as a nationwide class action consisting of addicted smokers who had contracted diseases associated with smoking. In 1996, Florida's 3rd District Court of Appeal allowed the case to proceed as a statewide class action.

Last year it was that same court that reversed the verdicts that had resulted from a multi-phased trial spanning nearly two years in Dade County Circuit Court.

The Engle case was conducted in two phases, with a third phase envisioned by Miami Circuit Court Judge Robert P. Kaye if there were plaintiffs' verdicts in the earlier phases.

Phase One began on Oct. 19, 1998, and ended on July 7, 1999, when a six-person jury found that smoking could cause more than 20 diseases or medical conditions; that cigarettes are addictive or dependence producing; and that tobacco companies could be assessed punitive damages.

Phase Two began on Nov. 1, 1999, and focused on whether the tobacco companies were liable to three individual smokers who had cancer.

On April 7, 2000, the six-person jury found in favor of plaintiffs Mary Farnan, Frank Amodeo and the estate of Angie Della Vecchia and awarded a total of $12.7 million in compensatory damages, setting the stage for the punitive damages phase. Plaintiff Frank Amodeo was also found by the jury to have sued too late.

The same six-person jury on July 14, 2000, returned a plaintiffs' verdict assessing punitive damages of nearly $145 billion against the cigarette makers.

Judge Kaye subsequently entered an order of final judgment against the companies despite his own ruling that each of the estimated 700,000 class members would require individual trials, setting the stage for the decision by Florida's 3rd District Court of Appeal and the subsequent appeal by plaintiffs to the Florida Supreme Court.