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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 15, 2009
Appeals Court Upholds California Jury’s Multi-Million Dollar Verdict against R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris
The family of Leslie Whiteley, a smoker who smoked her first cigarette in
1972 at age 13, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1998 and who died in July
2000 at the age of 40, won a major victory on Wednesday when the Court of
Appeal of the State of California, First Appellate District, Division Two,
upheld the jury’s awards, rendered in 2007, for her estate: $225,000 (for
past economic damages); $2,345,964 (on wrongful death claims); and $250,000
(in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds on the false promise cause of
action). The jury also awarded Leonard Whiteley, Leslie’s widower,
$30,000 for pre-death loss of consortium.
“I am delighted for the Whiteley family that the Court of Appeal has
rejected each of the tobacco companies’ arguments to overturn the verdict.
The family is closer to the day when these companies will be held
accountable for their reprehensible wrongdoing,” said Edward L. Sweda, Jr.,
Senior Attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project (TPLP), which is
based at Northeastern University School of Law in
The decision is at
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/A119345.PDF
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The Tobacco Products Liability Project
(TPLP) is a project of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, which is based at
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