Ciccone v. R.J. Reynolds (Fort Lauderdale, Florida)

In his first Engle Tobacco trial, plaintiff attorney Bill Wichmann convinced a Ft. Lauderdale jury that George Ciccone died of lung cancer and COPD caused by his addiction to cigarettes containing nicotine, and that R.J. Reynolds was liable for both compensatory and punitive damages because RJR’s defective products and gross negligence were a legal cause of Mr. Ciccone’s death.

However, Jones Day Engle veteran Kevin Boyce did not walk away empty-handed. The jury allocated most of the fault to the plaintiff, and the jury’s $50K punitive damage award was among the lowest punitive damage awards in an Engle trial.

In Phase 1 of the trial, the jury rejected RJR’s statute of limitations argument that Mr. Ciccone’s peripheral vascular disease did not manifest itself in time for Mr. Ciccone to be a member of the Engle class.  

In Phase 2, Mr. Wichmann told the jury that George Ciccone, who “served this country in the Navy, raised five kids, worked up until a week before he died — he never had a chance against the suits and the scientists from R.J. Reynolds — the suits on Wall Street, the suits in the Empire State Building, and the scientists. He never stood a chance…Young George Ciccone had a target on his back. R.J. Reynolds, we will prove to you, targeted young men like George Ciccone, to get him addicted on their product, so they could sell more products, and make more money, even though they knew that that product, if used exactly the way it was intended to be used, would cause lung cancer and death.“

For R.J. Reynolds, Jones Day’s Kevin Boyce told the jury that misstatements about the risks of smoking didn’t make any different to Mr. Ciccone. “The idea that he was waiting for word from Reynolds to quit is undercut by the fact that when that word was given…it made no difference to him. There’s no quit attempt in 1997…In 1998 she says he’s not interested in stopping. In 1999, two years after Reynolds’ CEO said smoking can cause lung cancer, and [his doctors told him he could] lose his legs, and he still didn’t try to stop…This is what you have to consider to see if plaintiffs can connect the conduct that they have been complaining about in this case with the harm suffered by Mr. Ciccone.“

The jury found that RJR cigarettes were defective, and the RJR’s conduct was grossly negligent. However, the jury allocated 70% of the fault to Mr. Ciccone, and only 30% to RJR.

The jury awarded $196,222 in medical expenses, $1.08M in past general damages, $1.9M in future general damages, and $50K in punitive damages.

CVN webcast the George Ciccone Tobacco Trial live.

Ciccone v. R.J. Reynolds (Fort Lauderdale, Florida)

George Ciccone smoked Reynolds tobacco cigarettes from age 11 until he died. He was diagnosed first with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and lung cancer, allegedly caused by his addiction to cigarettes.

In his opening Statement, Bill Wichmann (Law Offices of William Wichmann), said to the jury, “Why did George smoke so much, you might ask? The answer is simple. George got caught up in the addictive process as a young boy, years before there were warnings on the packages. A process that George knew nothing about, but a process that the tobacco companies knew everything about…Three to four packs per day over forty years..That much nicotine in cigarettes over that many years causes diseases like peripheral vascular disease, COPD, and lung cancer.”

“Mr. Boyce, the tobacco lawyer made an interesting comment,” Mr. Wichmann continued. “He talked about Spider Man. He said Spider Man says with great power comes great responsibility…Well let me tell you about the power. What the evidence in this case is going to show, that the nicotine in the RJR cigarettes was as powerfully addictive as heroin and cocaine…And they knew it back in the early 50′s when George lit up his first cigarette. They knew it, and they lied to the American people consistently, for decades.”

“In a curious, curious way,” said Mr. Wichmann, “An American Fortune 500 company is going to come in to this courtroom and tell you, ‘Our best customer is at fault for being just that, our best customer, and using it, and smoking it, and getting addicted, and dying from it.”

For defendant R.J. Reynolds, Kevin Boyce (Jones Day) told the jury, “Mr. Ciccone didn’t have lung cancer, and we’ll get to that in a moment. But it was interesting that Mr. Wichmann skipped over Mr. Ciccone’s entire life. He wants you to believe that he had a cigarette at age 11, and the next thing you know you’re in 2002 and he has lung cancer. That’s not real life. They skipped over forty years of smoking. Forty years of decisions. Forty years of behavior. Mr. Ciccone was a man who started smoking daily around 1962. He was 15 years old. He decided to drop out of high school…and this is when he first started buying cigarettes and smoking regularly. But from 1962 to 1990, Mr. Ciccone didn’t try to quit smoking one time.”

“They’ve got to show you that something Reynolds did or didn’t do was a direct and substantial cause of Mr. Ciccone’s behavior,” said Mr. Boyce, “that Reynolds made him do something that he didn’t want to do. That they caused his behavior. You will learn that there are millions of smokers in this country that are just like Mr. Ciccone. They don’t want to stop smoking. They know the risks of smoking, and they’ve made their own decisions about it. It’s perfectly natural for Mrs. Ciccone to wish that her husband had made different choices or had different priorities when he was alive. But it’s not appropriate for them to second-guess those choices in a lawsuit for money. Because ultimately, that is what this case is about. Are you going to reward Mrs. Ciccone with money because Mr. Ciccone smoked for so long without even trying to stop.“ 

Watch CVN’s live webcast of Ciccone v. RJR.