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Fort Lauderdale, FL— Jurors Tuesday handed down a $675,000 verdict against R.J. Reynolds after finding the company responsible for the emphysema that forced a long-time smoker to undergo a lung transplant. Schlefstein v. R.J. Reynolds, 2008-CV-022558.
Although the 17th Circuit Florida State Court jury found the cigarette maker responsible for Dawn Schlefstein’s respiratory disease, its award this week is a fraction of the $41.7 million total verdict levied against the company in a 2018 trial in the case. That verdict was overturned in 2019 by the state’s Fourth District Court of Appeal on an evidentiary dispute, leading to this month’s trial.
Tuesday’s verdict includes $450,000 in medical expenses and $225,000 for Schlefstein’s pain and suffering. Jurors declined to award punitives in the case.
Schlefstein smoked for more than 30 years, until doctors diagnosed her with respiratory disease, in 1995. Despite quitting, the disease became so serious she ultimately underwent a left lung transplant in 2001.
Schlefstein, 63, died in 2009 for reasons unrelated to smoking, but her family contends Reynolds caused her respiratory disease by concealing the dangers of cigarettes for much of her life and hooking her to cigarettes.
The case is one of thousands spun from Engle v. Liggett Group Inc., a Florida state court class-action lawsuit originally filed in 1994. After a trial victory for the class members, the state’s supreme court ultimately decertified the class, but ruled that so-called Engle progeny cases may be tried individually. Engle progeny plaintiffs are entitled to the benefit of the jury's findings in the original verdict, including the determination that tobacco companies had placed a dangerous, addictive product on the market and hid the dangers of smoking, if they prove the smoker at the heart of the case suffered from nicotine addiction that was the legal cause of a smoking-related disease such as emphysema.
The 10-day trial turned in part on whether nicotine addiction drove Schlefstein’s smoking. On Monday, The Alvarez Law Firm’s Michael Alvarez, representing Schlefstein's family, reviewed evidence that he said showed that Schlefstein was heavily addicted to nicotine, smoking a pack or more of cigarettes each day for decades, and failing in repeated attempts to quit. And he added that Schlefstein met the criteria for nicotine dependence across multiple tests.
"She craved and needed nicotine," Alvarez said.
But Reynolds contends Schlefstein chose to smoke despite knowing the dangers of cigarettes. In his closing Monday, King & Spalding’s Cory Hohnbaum reminded jurors that the National Institute of Drug Abuse, or NIDA, defined addiction as a chronic brain disease characterized by "compulsive drug-seeking and use, despite harmful consequences." Hohnbaum then told jurors Schlefstein successfully quit smoking once she was diagnosed with emphysema.
"If you use the NIDA definition [of addiction]," Hohnbaum said, "the case is over."
Email Arlin Crisco at acrisco@cvn.com.
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