Case Notes

FL Tobacco Claims

On April 6, Florida's Supreme Court announced in R.J. Reynolds v. Marotta, 2017 Fla. LEXIS 744, that a lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. may go forward, rejecting the cigarette manufacturer's argument that federal preemption foreclosed the right of an injured smoker and his representatives to bring state-law tort claims against it for marketing cigarettes. The case is significant because in its 2006 decision in Engle v. Liggett Group, Inc . ( Engle III ), 945 So. 2d 1246 (Fla. 2006), Florida's Supreme Court had decertified a statewide class that had already litigated their case against a number of cigarette manufacturers. However, the court allowed the class members to bring suit individually, giving them several procedural advantages in the process, including the right to have treated as res judicata many findings of fault against the cigarette manufacturers. The outcomes of these individual plaintiffs' claims impact others still to come — and when it comes to these so-called “Engle progeny” cases, there are thousands still to come.

The Marotta case was brought by representatives of the estate of Phil Marotta. A jury awarded them millions of dollars in damages. R.J. Reynolds appealed, arguing that because Congress has expressly concluded that cigarettes are dangerous and defective and yet has permitted their continued promotion and sale, that body has endorsed cigarette sales to the extent that state-law suits alleging strict liability or negligent harm are implicitly preempted. In rejecting that argument, Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Jorge Labarga wrote in Marotta, “Strict liability and negligence claims … do not interfere with the regulation of advertising and promotion of cigarettes and, therefore, do not clearly conflict with congressional objectives.” In fact, stated Labarga, the Engle progeny plaintiffs were not actually basing their claims on the argument that cigarettes are inherently dangerous; the real thrust of their complaints is that the manufacturers “intentionally increased the amount of nicotine in their products to ensure that consumers became addicted.”