USVI Juries Deliver $113M Verdicts Against R.J. Reynolds to Families of Deceased Newport Smokers
The Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) announced on Sunday that two tobacco lawsuits tried this month in St. Thomas have concluded with verdicts totaling $113.3 million. The cases, Gerald v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Brown v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., were brought by the children of two deceased smokers who had been hooked on Newport cigarettes as minors, according to the release.
Rare Double Jury Trials
The cases were tried simultaneously, with both 6-person juries together hearing evidence common to both cases, and each separate jury hearing issues such as medical testimony that was specific to its case. These are the first tobacco cases to be brought in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the first tobacco cases tried together in this way, and among the largest verdicts achieved to date in individual tobacco litigation.
PHAI President (and Northeastern University law professor) Richard Daynard commented: “We are delighted that two juries independently concluded that Newport’s original manufacturer, Lorillard, and its successor company R.J. Reynolds, sold an unreasonably and unnecessarily dangerous product, marketed it by use of fraud, fraudulent concealment, and conspiring with the other major cigarette producers, and engaged in outrageous conduct with evil motive or in reckless or callous disregard of the rights or safety of others. The juries saw through the defendant’s con game: they addicted these two smokers through deceptive advertising and free samples, made thousands of dollars of profits from their subsequent purchase of Newports, and then tried to blame them for their ‘irresponsible’ decision to keep using these products. The smokers in these two cases were among the more than 20 million Americans who died of cigarette-caused deaths since the first Surgeon General’s Report in 1964.”
Read more: https://viconsortium.com/virgin-islands-2/u-s-virgin-islands-juries-deliver-113-million-verdicts-against-r-j-reynolds-to-families-of-deceased-newport-smokers/