R.J. Reynolds Gets $10.6 Million Verdict Reversed on Hearsay

A son’s trial testimony about his deceased mother’s reliance on cigarette advertising contained hearsay that could have contributed to a $10.6 million jury verdict against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., a Florida appeals court said in ordering a new trial.

Filtered cigarettes were safe, Janice Hamilton told her son Robert when he was a teenager, according to his testimony. She said she got that information “from the advertising,” he testified on the stand.

Her statement was offered for the truth of the idea that she had heard filtered cigarettes were safe from tobacco company advertising, Judge Dorian K. Damoorgian said Wednesday for the Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District.

The court didn’t reach Reynolds’ challenge to a closing argument comparing the cigarette maker to a drug dealer, but cautioned trial attorneys for the estate to stay “within the confines of permissibility” in the second go-round.

Robert, as personal representative of his mother’s estate, sued Reynolds over her death from lung cancer, according to the court. He asserted claims for strict liability, negligence, fraud by concealment, and conspiracy to commit fraud.

The jury found for Reynolds on the fraud by concealment claim and for Robert on the others. It awarded the estate $6 million in compensatory damages and $4.6 million in punitive damages, without attributing amounts among the successful causes of action.

On appeal, Reynolds challenged the evidence supporting the jury’s finding of reliance for the conspiracy claim, as well as other issues.

That evidence was tainted by hearsay, the appeals court said. Even if the statements about filtered cigarettes were partially offered to show Janice’s state of mind, they were “undoubtedly also offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted—that Mrs. Hamilton heard filtered cigarettes were safe from advertising and not from some other source,” the court said.

And the error wasn’t harmless—the testimony was the strongest evidence of reliance, the court said.

Judges Cory J. Ciklin and Mark W. Klingensmith also served on the panel.

Bishop & Mills PLLC and Kelley Uustal PLC represented the estate. King & Spalding LLP represented Reynolds.

The case is R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Hamilton, 2021 BL 46549, Fla. Dist. Ct. App., 4th Dist., No. 4D19-2699, 2/10/21.