美법원, 담배회사에 “폐암사망 흡연자에 24조원 지급” 배상 평결 Florida jury awards record $23 billion against RJ Reynolds

 

 

reuters

 

[징벌적 손해배상 Treble damage]

민사상 가해자가 피해자에게 "악의를 가지고" 또는 "무분별하게" 재산 또는 신체상의 피해를 입힐 목적으로 불법행위를 행한 경우에, 이에 대한 손해배상 청구시, 가해자에게 손해 원금과 이자만이 아니라 형벌적인 요소로서의 금액을 추가적으로 포함시켜서 배상받을 수 있게 한 제도이다. 즉 종래의 민사상 불법행위책임에 형벌로서의 벌금을 혼합한 제도이다.wiki

 

미국 플로리다주 배심원은 남편이 폐암으로 숨진 것은 오랫동안 흡연했기 때문이라는 여성의 주장을 받아들여, 미국 담배회사 R.J.레이놀즈타바코에 징벌적 배상금 약 236억 달러(24조 3천억 원)를 지급하라고 평결했다고 미국 주요 언론이 19일 보도했다.   카멜 등의 제품으로 알려진 레이놀즈 측은 “합리성이 결여된 평결”이라고 반론하며 이의신청을 하겠다는 방침. 원고 여성은 신시아 로빈슨 씨. 징벌적 배상금 외에 유족 측에 약 1,680만 달러의 손해배상금도 인정됐다.   로빈슨 씨는 남편이 1996년 36세로 사망한 것은 13세부터 매일 1~3갑씩 담배를 계속 피운 결과라고 지적. 레이놀즈가 건강에 주는 악영향과 중독성을 알리는 데 소홀했기 때문이라고 주장했다.   소송은 플로리다주에서 과거에 일어난 집단소송 중 하나로 로빈슨 씨가 2008년 개인 소송을 제기해 배상을 요구했다.   [기사본문] http://www.47news.jp/korean/international_diplomacy/2014/07/094123.html [뉴욕 교도]

 

Florida jury awards record $23 billion against RJ

Reynolds

By Barbara Liston (Reuters) - A Florida jury has awarded the widow of a chain smoker who died of lung cancer 18 years ago record punitive damages of more than $23 billion in her lawsuit against the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the nation's second-biggest cigarette maker.   The judgment, returned on Friday night, was the largest in Florida history in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by a single plaintiff, according to Ryan Julison, a spokesman for the woman's lawyer, Chris Chestnut.   Cynthia Robinson of the Florida Panhandle city of Pensacola sued the cigarette maker in 2008 over the death of her husband, Michael Johnson, claiming the company conspired to conceal the health dangers and addictive nature of its products.   Johnson, a hotel shuttle bus driver who died of lung cancer in 1996 at age 36, smoked one to three packs a day for more 20 years, starting at age 13, Chestnut said.   "He couldn't quit. He was smoking the day he died," the lawyer told Reuters on Saturday. After a four-week trial and 11 hours of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict granting compensatory damages of $7.3 million to the widow and the couple's child, and $9.6 million to Johnson's son from a previous relationship.   The same jury deliberated for another seven hours before awarding Robinson the additional sum of $23.6 billion in punitive damages, according to the verdict forms. Lawyers for the tobacco company, a unit of Reynolds American Inc [RAI.N] whose brands include Camel, Kool, Winston and Pall Mall cigarettes, could not immediately be reached for comment.   But J. Jeffery Raborn, vice president and assistant general counsel for R.J. Reynolds, said in a statement quoted by the New York Times that the company planned to challenge "this runaway verdict." Such industry appeals are often successful.   Chestnut countered, "This wasn't a runaway jury, it was a courageous one." He said jurors appeared to have been swayed by evidence of the company's aggressive marketing of tobacco products, particularly promotions aimed at young people, and by its claims that it was Johnson's choice to smoke.   "They lied to Congress, they lied to the public, they lied to smokers and tried to blamed the smoker," he said.   Robinson's lawsuit originally was part of a large class-action litigation known as the "Engle case," filed in 1994 against tobacco companies.   A jury in that case returned a verdict in 2000 in favor of the plaintiffs awarding $145 billion in punitive damages, which at the time was the largest such judgment in U.S. history.   That award, however, was tossed out in 2006 by the Florida Supreme Court, which decertified the class, agreeing with a lower court that the group was too disparate and that each consumer had smoked for different reasons.   But the court said the plaintiffs could file lawsuits individually. Robinson was one of them. The Florida high court also let stand the jury's findings that cigarettes are defective and cause disease, and that Big Tobacco was negligent, meaning those issues did not have to be re-litigated in future lawsuits.   The U.S. Supreme Court last month declined to hear a series of tobacco company appeals, mainly from R.J. Reynolds, seeking to overturn Florida court judgments totaling more than $70 million.   [Main page link] http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/20/us-usa-tobacco-award-idUSKBN0FO0ZM20140720 (Editing by Steve Gorman and Sandra Maler) reuters

 

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