Koballa v. Philip Morris ended in a mistrial today when the jury reported after Phase 1 that it was unable to reach a verdict.
During the first afternoon of deliberations, the jury asked, "What if we cannot agree on if she was addicted or not?"
On the morning of the second day of deliberations, the jury asked for a medical or regular dictionary, because they were unable to understand some of the terms in the medical records.
On the afternoon of the second day of deliberations, after about 10 hours of deliberation, the jury stated, "We the jury cannot agree on a verdict in this case." The jury then confirmed to Judge Robert Rouse that additional deliberations could not result in a unanimous verdict.
Judge Rouse indicated that he had at least 62 Engle trials on his own docket, and there were perhaps over one hundred Engle trials on the docket of his colleague, Hon. Judge William A. Parsons, but that Stella Koballa's was the first Engle case tried in Volusia County. "As you can imagine," said Judge Rouse, "It's going to take us a while."
Two prior mistrials this year -- Warrick and Willis -- both were retried and both resulted in defense verdicts on retrial.
CVN webcast the Koballa tobacco trial live.
