USSC Denies Cert In Engle (Tobacco) Case

The WSJ reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has denied certiorari in Engle:   

The industry in July 2006 won a largely favorable ruling from the Florida Supreme Court, which refused to reinstate the $145 billion in punitive damages awarded by a Florida jury and declined to revive the lawsuit's class-action status.

The Florida court, however, allowed the up to 700,000 individuals who could have won judgments under the original verdict to use findings from the extensive jury trial to bring new cases against the tobacco companies.

. . .

The tobacco companies asked the Supreme Court to bar smokers from using the existing jury findings to bring new cases, a maneuver Florida state courts said would speed up the 14-year-old tobacco litigation as it moved forward. The companies also argued that federal tobacco advertising laws bar state-level lawsuits over tobacco marketing and the failure of companies to warn of smoking risks.

- SBS