Federal Judges Forced Smokers' Families to Accept Pittance Settlement in Engle Cases

WASHINGTON - Feb. 25, 2015 - PRLog -- WASHINGTON, D.C.  (February 25, 2015): The families of smokers who were killed or seriously injured by the deliberate misrepresentations of cigarette companies were forced to settle their so-called Engle cases for a pittance because of unfair pressure put on their attorneys by federal judges who were openly concerned that the smoker cases were clogging their dockets, says a public interest lawyer involved with the Engle case.

        Although many recent verdicts in these Engle cases were for many millions of dollars, the time pressures and financial pressures forced the families involved in the estimated 400 remaining Engle cases to settle for $100,000,000 - only about $250,000 each before subtracting for attorneys' fees and other costs.

        That federal judges would adopt that same Pattonesque tactics the tobacco industry used so successfully to insure that smokers would never get their day in court - much less justice - reflects very poorly upon those who demand to be called "Your Honor," and raises the concern that state court judges in Florida might copy and adopt the same tactic to settle the even larger number of cases in their courts, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

        Banzhaf has been called the "Ralph Nader of the Tobacco Industry," ""The Man Behind the Ban on Cigarette Commercials," "a Driving Force Behind the Lawsuits That Have Cost Tobacco Companies Billions of Dollars," and  "The Law Professor Who Masterminded Litigation Against the Tobacco Industry."

        Faced with an estimated 4,000 law suits by smokers and their families against the major cigarette manufacturers filed in the federal courts in Florida, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals brought in U.S. District Judge William Young to take over the federal docket of Florida smokers' cases.  He threw out many of the cases himself, and then brought in additional federal judges from outside the state.

        This enabled him to schedule many of the smoker trials during a very short period of time - four different smokers trials began in four different federal courts on February 4th alone - thereby putting an almost impossible burden on the small number of personal injury [plaintiffs] attorneys with the specialized expertise necessary to litigate smoker claims.

        Judge Young also made it clear that he would maintain this blistering trial pace until there was a settlement, and reportedly ordered lawyers to prepare 100 cases at a time.  This meant that plaintiffs' attorneys were spread impossibly thin, being forced to try some cases while at the same time working up evidence and preparing witnesses for scores of other cases which would come to trial very shortly.

        This tactic of blitzing the other side, crippling it by forcing it to spend enormous amounts of money, is one the tobacco industry bragged about as a major reason for its earlier successes.


         For example, Reynolds bragged in 1988 that "to paraphrase General Patton, the way we won these cases was not by spending all of Reynold's money, but by making that other son of a bitch spend all his."

        And while such an impossible state-wide smoker-case schedule was punishing to both sides, it was much tougher on the Davids than on the Goliaths.  For example, Philip Morris alone had about $31 billion in income during 2014, and has the ability to both generate and borrow money which even a dozen law firms could not begin to equal.  Thus, for Phillip Morris, the settlement represents only pocket change.

        Thus it is not at all surprising, says Banzhaf, that Young's pressure tactics - which many would argue were unfair - had a far greater adverse impact on the smokers' families than on the tobacco giants.

        The settlement is far less than the more than $500 million the industry the industry has had to pay plaintiffs in other Florida Engle cases over the past decade.

JOHN F. BANZHAF III, B.S.E.E., J.D., Sc.D.
Professor of Public Interest Law
George Washington University Law School,
FAMRI Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor,
Fellow, World Technology Network,
Founder, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
2000 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052, USA
(202) 994-7229 // (703) 527-8418
http://banzhaf.net/ @profbanzhaf