{"id":15450,"date":"2014-07-20T04:06:07","date_gmt":"2014-07-20T04:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/us-widow-wins-23-6bn-tobacco-payout\/"},"modified":"2014-07-20T04:02:31","modified_gmt":"2014-07-20T04:02:31","slug":"us-widow-wins-23-6bn-tobacco-payout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/us-widow-wins-23-6bn-tobacco-payout\/","title":{"rendered":"US Widow Wins $23.6bn Tobacco Payout"},"content":{"rendered":"

A US court has ordered the country’s second largest cigarette company to pay $23.6 billion (\u00a313.8bn) to the wife of a smoker who died of lung cancer.<\/p>\n

RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company was hit with the punitive fine in addition to $16.8m (\u00a39.8m) in compensatory damages.<\/p>\n

Cynthia Robinson took action against the firm in 2008, seeking compensation for her husband’s death in 1996.<\/p>\n

An official at the company said the court’s verdict was “far beyond the realm of reasonableness and fairness”.<\/p>\n

During the four-week trial, lawyers for Ms Robinson argued that RJ Reynolds was negligent in informing consumers of the dangers of consuming tobacco.<\/p>\n

This negligence, the lawyers said, led to her husband Michael Johnson Sr contracting lung cancer from smoking after becoming “addicted” and failing multiple attempts to quit.<\/p>\n

‘A message for tobacco firms’
\n“RJ Reynolds took a calculated risk by manufacturing cigarettes and selling them to consumers without properly informing them of the hazards,” Ms Robinson’s lawyer Willie Gary said.<\/p>\n

“We hope that this verdict will send a message to RJ Reynolds and other big tobacco companies that will force them to stop putting the lives of innocent people in jeopardy,” he added.<\/p>\n

RJ Reynolds plans to appeal against the court’s decision, vice president and assistant general counsel Jeffery Raborn said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“This verdict goes far beyond the realm of reasonableness and fairness, and is completely inconsistent with the evidence presented,” Mr Raborn said.<\/p>\n

The punitive damages awarded to Ms Robinson were said to be the largest of any individual case stemming from a class action lawsuit filed in Florida.<\/p>\n

Several similar cases have resulted in smaller payouts after the state’s highest court ruled that smokers and their families only had to prove addiction and that smoking caused their illness.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

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A US court has ordered the country’s second largest cigarette company to pay $23.6 billion (\u00a313.8bn) to the wife of a smoker who died of lung cancer. RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company was hit with the punitive fine in addition to $16.8m (\u00a39.8m) in compensatory damages. Cynthia Robinson took action against the firm in 2008, seeking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000053141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-15450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000053141,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15450.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15450.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15450.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15450.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15450.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15450.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000053141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15450"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=15450"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=15450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}