Vero Beach, FL—In closing arguments today, counsel debated whether Gloria Gore, the deceased smoker at the center of one of Florida’s Engle progeny tobacco suits, was a nicotine addict whose smoking ultimately killed her, or was a smoker-by-choice who enjoyed her cigarettes. The wrongful death suit against R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris, one of the first Engle trials since a record punitive verdict against tobacco companies in a similar suit last month, has been given to the jury. Robert Gore v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

Stephen Corr, representing Gloria's husband, plaintiff Robert Gore, described Gloria as a heavily addicted smoker who began the habit when she was 14. Corr replayed for jurors testimony of Gloria forcing Robert out into a hurricane to look for cigarettes. “She goes out (in a hurricane) because she needs to get the nicotine in those cigarettes," Corr told jurors. "She grabbed cigarette butts out of the ashtray, out of the trashcan, and smoked those, just to get what she needed. The addictive nature of the nicotine is so overwhelming, it causes her to do these things.” Corr said.

But Robert McCarter, representing Philip Morris, told jurors that Gloria chose to smoke because she enjoyed it. He reminded jurors that Gloria refused to quit smoking while pregnant with her three children, said she smoking, and became upset when Robert or others told her to quit.

Gloria Gore, who smoked 1-2 packs of cigarettes a day for 45 years, died of lung cancer in 2000. Robert filed suit as an Engle-class plaintiff and seeks $7.5 million in damages. Whether Gloria was addicted to nicotine is a threshold issue of Robert's Engle class membership.

Robert must also prove that Gloria’s addiction caused her to contract a smoking-related disease by the November 21, 1996 cutoff date for Engle class membership. Although Gloria was not diagnosed with lung cancer until after that date, Corr argued that smoking caused Gloria’s carotid stenosis, or narrowing of the carotid arteries, which was diagnosed in 1992.

Corr pointed to trial testimony of Dr. David Burns, a smoking addiction expert, who said he believed Gloria was addicted to smoking and that her addiction was “a substantial contributing factor” to her stenosis.

However, McCarter reminded the jury that Gloria bore a variety of risk factors for stenosis, including high cholesterol, a family history of heart disease, and a history of smoking. McCarter noted that Burns was a paid expert who never personally examined Gloria, while a physician who treated Gloria did not testify at trial.

While the claim of carotid stenosis serves to establish Engle class membership, if jurors determine Robert Gore has met the Engle threshold, he becomes eligible to recover damages for Gloria’s lung cancer and death.

Gore is one of thousands of tobacco cases that arise from a 2006 Florida Supreme Court decision decertifying Engle v. Liggett Group Inc., a 1994 class action suit. Although that decision ruled Engle cases must be tried individually, it found qualifying Engle progeny plaintiffs could rely on certain jury findings in the original case, including the conclusion that tobacco companies sold a dangerous, addictive product. In July, jurors awarded a smoker’s widow more than $23 billion in punitive damages in her Engle suit against R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco companies.

In requesting $7.5 million in compensatory damages and a jury determination that punitive damages are warranted, Gore's attorney Robert Foote acknowledged that Gloria was partially responsible for the long-term effects of her smoking. However Foote urged jurors to apportion the lion’s share of responsibility to the defendants when determining damages. Foote told jurors that Gloria smoked throughout the tobacco industry’s decades-long coverup of smoking’s dangers. "Gloria was right in the middle of this conspiracy," he said. "It affected her as much as it affected any American, because she had the conspiracy from the beginning to the end," Foote said, arguing for a finding that punitive damages are warranted.

However, the defense contended that Gloria bore sole responsibility for her smoking. McCarter told jurors, “Mrs. Gore made her decisions to smoke, and not to quit, for her own reasons," McCarter said. "If you have the information, and you make the choice, and you don't want to stop, it's your responsibility," he said.

They case was given to the jury shortly before 6 p.m. Jurors elected to leave for the evening and will return tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. to deliberate.

Related Information

View live and on-demand footage of the trial.

Read Openings in Engle Progeny Tobacco Case Focus on Whether Smoker was Addicted to Nicotine.

Each Friday, we'll highlight the week's Engle progeny proceedings and provide a look ahead to next week.

Heather Irimi, et al. v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, et al.

As the first full week of trial in Irimi v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. drew to a close, jurors on Friday heard Dale Moyer recount how he began smoking and how he became addicted to the cigarettes that his daughter claims eventually caused an array of health problems before his death.

Plaintiffs' counsel played a series of Moyer’s videotaped depositions that were recorded prior to his death in 2013. In them, Moyer describes how he first smoked when he was nine years old, sneaking cigarettes with friends in a makeshift fort. “It was a crate caskets are shipped in,” Moyer said. “We’d smoke in there.”

Moyer testified how he eventually became a two-pack-a-day smoker as an adult. He said he remembered the publication of scientific evidence on the dangers of smoking, including a 1964 Surgeon General's report, as well as tobacco industry statements "debunking" the evidence. Later, he said he tried to quit smoking through a variety of methods over the years, including hypnosis and slowing reducing the number of cigarettes he smoked. "I kept trying to cut back, without success," Moyer said. "(But) I'd wind up smoking just as much or more."

"I was a smoker, you know, so I smoked through thick and thin," Moyer said.

Moyer's daughter Heather Irimi and other family members sued R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard Tobacco Co., and Liggett Group Inc., claiming the tobacco manufacturers were part of a conspiracy to cover up the dangers of smoking, while ensuring smokers such as Moyer remained addicted to the nicotine in their cigarettes. Irimi is one of thousands of Engle progeny tobacco suits, and one of the first to be tried after a Pensacola jury awarded another Engle plaintiff $23.6 billion in punitive damages against tobacco industry defendants in Cynthia Robinson v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, et al.

Experts Testify on Tobacco Conspiracy and Addiction

Moyer’s deposition follows days of testimony from plaintiffs' experts detailing the intricacies of nicotine addiction as well as the history of tobacco marketing and its cover up of smoking’s dangers. Robert Proctor, a Stanford University professor and author of Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition, described five decades of tobacco industry efforts to “disprove, deny, dispute, distract” mounting public evidence that smoking was dangerous, despite the industry’s own knowledge that cigarettes were harmful. He said cigarette marketing efforts caused a “huge epidemic of smoking that’s taken the lives of tens of millions of Americans.”

Later, Daniel Seidman, a Columbia University faculty member and smoking cessation practitioner, testified that smoking addiction is so powerful that many smokers continue the habit even after being diagnosed with severe illnesses. “You’d be amazed to see how many people who have asthma, lung disease, and have already had a heart attack continue to smoke.” Seidman said that Moyer bore the hallmarks of a heavily addicted smoker and that his need for nicotine increased as time went on. “Decade after decade he ended up smoking more,” Seidman said. “Just to stay normal, just to keep his brain normal, he was always seeking more and more nicotine.”

However, on cross-examination, Kevin Boyce, an attorney for R.J. Reynolds, challenged Seidman’s opinion that Moyer was strongly addicted to nicotine. Boyce raised the issue of whether Moyer had ever been committed to quit smoking prior to being diagnosed with respiratory problems in the '90s.

Among other issues, plaintiffs must prove that Moyer was addicted to smoking in order to be considered members of the Engle class and entitled to its findings. Irimi, as other Engle progeny cases, arises from a 2006 Florida Supreme Court decision decertifying Engle v. Liggett Group Inc., a class action suit originally filed in 1994. Although the state’s supreme court ruled Engle cases must be tried individually, it found qualifying Engle progeny plaintiffs could rely on certain jury findings in the original case, including that tobacco companies conspired to hide the dangers of smoking and sold a dangerous, addictive product.

Trial resumes on Monday morning.

Related Information

View on-demand video of the trial.

Read Trial Begins in Irimi v. R.J. Reynolds, One of First Post-Robinson, Engle Progeny Proceedings.