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Jury deliberating in Fla. tobacco trial
Court Watch |
2009/02/13 08:33
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A jury is deliberating a key phase in the first of 8,000 Florida lawsuits blaming health problems and deaths on tobacco companies.
The six-person Broward County jury must decide whether Stuart Hess was addicted to cigarette nicotine before he got lung cancer and died. If so, the jury would later decide any damages against the Philip Morris tobacco company.
The lawsuit by widow Elaine Hess is the first to go to trial since the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 threw out a $145 billion class-action jury award, ruling that each case had to be proven individually. Hess' lawyers said Thursday he was hopelessly addicted to nicotine. The lawyer for Philip Morris said Hess chose not to quit despite known health risks. |
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Class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, at least the U.S. variant of it. In the United States federal courts, class actions are governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule. Since 1938, many states have adopted rules similar to the FRCP. However, some states like California have civil procedure systems which deviate significantly from the federal rules; the California Codes provide for four separate types of class actions. As a result, there are two separate treatises devoted solely to the complex topic of California class actions. Some states, such as Virginia, do not provide for any class actions, while others, such as New York, limit the types of claims that may be brought as class actions. They can construct your law firm a brand new website, lawyer website templates and help you redesign your existing law firm site to secure your place in the internet. |
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