After emotional testimony by the children of a 38-year-old Coral Springs woman who died of lung cancer after a life of smoking, a jury in Florida ordered R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to pay the family $37.5 million.
Laura Grossman began smoking Vantage cigarettes when she was 15-years-old. She died in 1995 at the age of 38 as a mother of two young children.
Her family sued R.J. Reynolds, arguing the tobacco industry targeted teens who were susceptible to nicotine addiction.
“What folks don’t know is that the basis of the [tobacco] business is kids,” said Scott Schlesinger, the family’s attorney.
R.J. Reynolds argued that Vantage packages contained a warning label, so Grossman was responsible for her decisions.
But Schlesinger contended a teen is too young to weigh the risks.
“It’s not fair to say, ‘You’ve been warned’ to a 15 year old because a 15-year-old can’t make an adult decision [about the risks of smoking],” he said.
One of the documents he showed the jury was a confidential RJ Reynolds memo from 1973 — two years before Grossman began smoking — called “Some Thought About New Brands of Cigarettes for the Youth Market.”
During the three-week trial, Grossman’s children, Jessica, 28, and Steven, 21, remembered their mother with emotional and vivid testimony, including her death nearly 20 years ago.
“They had different memories that I was not aware of,” said Grossman’s widower, Jan, 63. “[T]hey remembered her being removed from the house in a body bag after she passed away.”
The testimony helped convince the jury to find RJR partially to blame and award $15 million in compensatory damages and $22.5 million in punitive damages.
Jan Grossman said he expects the tobacco giant to appeal and said, “I hope they pay before I pass away.”
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