Florida Judge to Rule on Tobacco Damages Sum

Lawyers for cigarette companies and sick Florida smokers head back to court today to figure out the next step now that the jury in the class action has awarded an unprecedented $145 billion in punitive damages. The trial judge must now decide whether to enter an order making final the amount that jurors said Friday that America’s five big cigarette companies must pay for making Florida smokers sick--by far the largest civil damage award in U.S. history. Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Robert Kaye could cut the award in the so-called Engle class-action case, and even the jurors expected that he or an appeals court would do so. “I don’t think the numbers are going to stick,” juror James Strowbridge said in a CNN interview Sunday. Florida law prohibits damage awards so large they could bankrupt a company. Philip Morris attorney Dan Webb said Friday that the award was large enough to bankrupt the tobacco companies 10 times over.