Two more Engle tobacco verdicts in May gave plaintiffs and defendants each a win.
In Grossman v. R.J. Reynolds, Schlesinger law firm's Steven Hammer argued that there was no doubt among the treating physicians that Laura Grossman's death in November, 1995, at age 38, resulted from lung cancer, and the jury would only hear otherwise from a defense expert who had been paid $150,000 to testify.
According to the defense, the cancer that Laura Grossman contracted at age 36 was not lung cancer, but instead was gastric or breast cancer. Further, Laura was not addicted to cigarettes. Jones Day's Peter Biersteker argued that she only tried to quit once -- smoking for her was a choice.
The jury awarded plaintiff Jan Grossman $12.9M (Update: actually, "closer to $1.9M," according to a Grossman juror who contacted CVN.)
In the Engle-progeny tobacco trial Gil de Rubio v. Philip Morris, a Jacksonville, Florida, jury found that Raymond Gil de Rubio's death did not result from lung cancer.
