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R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company was denied a new trial or judgment as a matter of law after a 37-year-old smoker with larynx cancer was awarded $11,952,539 against it on claims of strict liability and negligence. The "heightened addictive properties...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - (AP) Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia exercised a rarely used power last fall to let Philip Morris USA and three other big tobacco companies delay making multimillion-dollar payments for a program to help people quit smoking. Scalia...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - (AP) A Connecticut smoker who won $8 million against a tobacco company in May, the first such jury award in New England, has been awarded $4 million in punitive damages and stands to get millions more in interest. Barbara Izzarelli...

RICHMOND, Va. - (AP) The nation's top cigarette companies said Friday they have made their payments as part of the 25-year settlement in which some cigarette makers are paying states for smoking-related health care costs. Philip Morris USA, the nation's...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - (AP) A federal judge has awarded nearly $16 million in interest to a smoker who already had won $12 million against a tobacco company in the first such jury award in New England. Judge Stefan Underhill awarded about $15.7 million to...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - (AP) Four of the five largest U.S. tobacco companies sued the federal government Tuesday over new graphic cigarette labels that include the sewn-up corpse of a smoker and a picture of diseased lungs, saying the warnings violate their...

MIAMI - (AP) A Florida Supreme Court ruling that threw out a $145 billion award against cigarette makers is biting Big Tobacco back, making it dramatically easier for thousands of smokers to sue and turning the state into the nation's hot spot for...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - (Mealey's) A Florida federal court jury found for the defense Feb. 16 in the first federal tobacco trial based on the Florida Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Engle v. Liggett Group, Inc. (945 So.2d 1246 [Fla. Sup. 2006...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - (Mealey's) The U.S. Supreme Court has denied tobacco companies' appeal of a Louisiana state court order to fund a $241 million medical monitoring and smoking cessation program, according to a clerk of the court report issued...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A Florida jury awarded $4.5 million to the 87-year-old widow of a longtime smoker April 13, but tempered her eventual compensation by assigning nearly half of the responsibility to the decedent ( Mary Tullo v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco...

TAMPA, Fla. -- After awarding $100,000 in compensatory damages to a longtime smoker who had his larynx and part of his tongue removed as a result of laryngeal cancer, a Florida jury on Feb. 11 added $250,000 in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco...

CINCINNATI - (Mealey's) The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Feb. 22 affirmed the dismissal of antitrust and constitutional challenges brought by General Tobacco to the national tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between tobacco manufacturers...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - (Mealey's) Saying graphic new cigarette pack warnings ordered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration violate companies' First Amendment rights by compelling speech, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - (Mealey's) On Aug. 26, a Florida jury returned a verdict of no liability for a cigarette company that was sued by the son of a deceased smoker in the latest Engle progeny case, one of only a handful of defense verdicts to date...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - (Mealey's) The U.S. Supreme Court declined June 28 to review an appellate decision upholding most of the remedies imposed on the tobacco industry by the federal judge who found it liable for a decades-long pattern of fraud and deception...