From: [voltai 29] at [chelsea.ios.com] (Voltaire)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.politics.usa.republican,alt.politics.usa.congress,alt.politics.usa.newt-gingrich
Subject: #Florida Appeal Court Affirms Class Action For Tobacco Lawsuit
Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 12:26:15 GMT

Florida Appeal Court Affirms Class Action For Tobacco Lawsuit

Tom Well of the Associated Press, January 31, 1996

MIAMI (AP) - In a major setback for the tobacco industry, a Florida 
appeals court on Wednesday gave class action status to a lawsuit 
filed on behalf of people who are addicted to cigarettes or whose 
health has been impaired by smoking.

The lawsuit, one of several such actions against the tobacco industry,
applies only to residents of Florida. It seeks to force the industry 
to pay billions of dollars in damages, and create a fund to diagnose 
and treat smoking-related illnesses.

"This is a very significant lawsuit, one of perhaps five lawsuits 
that are pending," said John Banzhaf, a law professor at George 
Washington University in Washington, D.C. He is executive director 
of the anti-smoking organization, Action on Smoking and Health.

"It is significant because as far as I know it is the highest state 
court to rule on this so far as a class action ... and because 
it opens the way for class action lawsuits in most of the other 
states," he said.

A class action in the lawsuit means that any Florida smoker who 
believes he became addicted to cigarettes or whose health was harmed 
by smoking could join in any benefits that might come out a
settlement.

Other similar lawsuits against the tobacco industry have been filed 
in Minnesota, Mississippi and West Virginia.

A federal district court in New Orleans has certified a lawsuit 
against the tobacco industry as a class action, but that appeal 
has not been heard.

The Florida lawsuit, certified as a class-action by the Third District

Court of Appeal in Miami, is against 13 cigarette manufacturers 
and industry organizations.

One of the largest, R.J. Reynolds, will challenge the ruling in 
court, said the company's senior vice president, Daniel W. Donahue. 
"It's too early to decide, but we'll do something," he said.

Philip Morris said it would ask for a rehearing by the appeals 
court, and failing that, appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.

The Miami attorney who filed the lawsuit, Stanley M. Rosenblatt,
said he believed the case will be tried by early 1997.

Rosenblatt also filed a class action lawsuit in 1991 on behalf 
of airline flight attendants, nonsmokers who said their health 
had been damaged by working in a smoking environment. That case 
is still pending.

The six initial plaintiffs in the lawsuit ruled on Wednesday include 
74-year-old Miami Beach pediatrician Howard A. Engle, who claimed 
he tried to stop smoking scores of times, and Robert Angell, a 
61-year-old North Dade County man who lost his larynx to cancer 
and smoked his last cigarette as he was wheeled into the operating 
room in 1984.

The lawsuit charges that cigarette manufacturers have known for 
more than 25 years that nicotine is addictive and that smoking 
causes disease, but have "intentionally suppressed scientific and 
medical evidence."