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DrugScreening.org


 
Smoker Gets $19 Million in Product-Defect Case
May 28, 2003

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News Summary

An Arkansas jury said that cigarettes are a defective product because they are unreasonably dangerous by design, and awarded $19 million to a man whose wife died of cancer in 1999.

The Associated Press reported May 26 that the Little Rock jury awarded $15 million in punitive damages and $4.025 million in actual damages to Henry Boerner, husband of the late Mary Jane Boerner. The jurors agreed with the plaintiff's claim that Brown & Williamson, maker of the cigarettes that Mrs. Boerner smoked, contributed to her death at age 69.

The jury supported the tobacco company on a concurrent claim that their warning labels were inadequate, however.

Company officials said they would appeal the decision.

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