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Husband-and-Wife Firm Awarded $218 Million in Fees Despite BigLaw Objection By Billy Shields MIAMI - Miami-Dade Circuit Judge David C. Miller awarded $218 million in legal fees Tuesday to Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt for years of work they put into now-defunct class action litigation against the nation's biggest cigarette markers. "I find it very reasonable," Miller said from the bench, referring to fee calculations estimating they worked for 77 hours a week on average at an hourly rate of $274. "These are reasonable and conservative hours.""In fact, in some firms that would not have been acceptable billing," he joked before a courtroom packed with at least 200 people. Tobacco attorney Robert Heim, a partner with Dechert in Philadelphia, told Miller "it would be wrong under common fund law" to award fees to the Rosenblatts, saying a guardian ad litem should be appointed to administer a fund "to protect the interests of the class." The fees would come out of a common "guaranteed fund" of about $800 million that Big Tobacco put up as collateral in 2001 to appeal the record $145 billion punitive verdict the Rosenblatts won against cigarette makers. The verdict was later thrown out by the Florida Supreme Court along with a class certification order uniting sick smokers in a single lawsuit. Miller still must determine how to distribute the rest of the $800 million fund. Rosenblatt railed against Big Tobacco as he argued Tuesday before Miller for fees in the case dating back to 1994. The two-year trial marked the first time tobacco executives acknowledged in court that smoking causes illness and is addictive. "For close to half a century, there were all these high-priced lawyers saying, ‘Ah, it'S all about willpower. It's not addictive," he said. Describing the industry's legal tactics, Rosenblatt said, "There's a word in Yiddish. It's chutzpah." Rosenblatt had little to say after a ruling on the Miami husband-and-wife firm's huge payday. Given the industry track record in the case, an appeal is assured. Plaintiffs and attorneys from around the state whom Rosenblatt had never met took the podium to recommend that Miller grant him fees. "It was just incredibly gratifying," he said. "We were impressed." The plaintiffs largely belong to the roughly 8,000 lawsuits dubbed "the Engle progeny," the offspring of the famous class action filed on behalf of Miami Beach pediatrician Howard Engle. The case became known as Engle v. Liggett as it moved through the courts. A line to speak in support of the Rosenblatts' fee request ran out of the room. Many people at the hearing were visibly ill or relatives of deceased smokers. Gene Anthony Hitchens, for example, came to the hearing with an oxygen tank and tubes running to his nose. He carried the tank with him when he spoke before the judge. Tobacco lawyers argued the Rosenblatts had no right to the money because the punitive award was overturned and because the fund might be used for punitive awards in the Engle spin-offs. "Much of the case, including the entire $145 billion classwide punitive damages award, has been resolved in defendants' favor and the ultimate benefit of the litigation to class members is yet to be determined," Heim wrote for the industry in opposition to attorney fees. The fee petition put the people in the room in a bit of an awkward position. The Rosenblatts stumped for their own role in starting litigation that other attorneys are pursuing now, and the Engle progeny attorneys supported them. "I don't see the problem. He worked hard," said Carl Grant of Fort Lauderdale. His father, George, smoked for most of his life and died in 1983 from emphysema and heart disease. "It ain't no free ride. They earned it." New Engle lawyers, including the ostentatious Willie Gary, agreed. "When I think of the jobs they've done for the people, it gives new meaning to the words ‘hard work,'" he told Miller. The work they did was to lay the groundwork for much of the litigation against the tobacco industry in Florida. And while the verdict was tossed and the class disbanded, the findings of the jury in the case the Rosenblatts litigated can be used for future cases. Despite decertifying the class, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the findings of the Miami jury in the original Engle case that will guide individual smoker cases going forward. Juries in individual Engle progeny cases will be advised to accept as proven that nicotine is addictive and smoking causes cancer and more than a dozen other illnesses. Future juries considering damages also will be told tobacco companies were negligent, placed defective and unreasonably dangerous products on the market and defrauded consumers by misleading them. But cigarette makers are not going to accept the findings as mere givens when the individual cases go to trial. Defense attorneys around the state look at the jury findings as being open for interpretation. Attorneys representing smokers insist tobacco attorneys have employed creative stalling tactics to allow sick smokers to die before their cases can be heard, a charge tobacco attorneys dismiss. Miller said he wants to expedite the proceedings. "Justice delayed is justice denied," he said.
Smokers Get Update on 660 Lawsuits So two Jacksonville law
firms, Wilner and Block and Farah and Farah, are working It was the first time a tobacco company had to pay damages. Wilner said he hopes the court will assign the suits to one of the four federal judges in Jacksonville and that the judge will agree to let the cases be tried 25 cases at a time to expedite the litigation. Wilner said some of the findings don't need to be proved again, including that the tobacco companies were negligent and knew their products were dangerous and addictive. But the plaintiffs still will have to prove the extent to which they were damaged by smoking. A guest at the gathering was Alan Landers, a former actor and model who was "The Winston Man" in many of that brand's commercials and advertisements. He said he has survived lung cancer twice, double heart bypass, removal of parts of his lungs and vocal cord reconstruction so he could regain his speech. "I am too angry at the tobacco industry to die," Landers said. Wilner advised the plaintiffs to keep checking the firms' Web sites for updates: www.wilnerblock.com and www.farahandfarah.com. He said it will be about a year before the first cases go to trial. There is a Jan. 11 deadline for people who were part of the class-action lawsuit to file an individual case, he said. This story can be found on Jacksonville.com at http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/092707/met_203189041.shtml. Court
Helps Ill Smokers Filing Individual Suits By Jay Weaver The Florida Supreme Court Thursday snuffed out the tobacco industry's strategy to slow down thousands of ailing state smokers in pursuing individual lawsuits against the country's major cigarette makers. The high court, in a 4-2 vote, rejected a request by Philip Morris USA and other tobacco corporations to throw out key legal findings by a Miami-Dade jury in a landmark class-action case. Those findings on the health hazards of smoking, the addictive nature of nicotine and the industry's deceptive marketing practices will provide an edge for sick smokers who were part of the lawsuit a decade ago to move ahead with individual claims. Damage Award In July, the state Supreme Court had delivered a huge blow to the Florida class of smokers by overturning a $145 billion punitive judgment awarded by a Miami-Dade Circuit Court jury. The six justices who had heard the appeal -- a seventh dropped out because of a conflict of interest -- concluded that the jury's punitive damage award in 2000 was ''excessive as a matter of law,'' because it was unreasonably high. The justices also decertified the class filed on behalf of approximately 700,000 smokers. The justices found that each ailing smoker must prove individually that cigarettes caused illnesses ranging from cancer to emphysema. On Thursday, the justices redelivered those twin-barreled blows -- but they left almost entirely intact critical legal findings by the Miami-Dade jury in the high-stakes case. The Miami couple who have represented the class of smokers hailed the high court's ruling. ''It's a victory for the class,'' said Miami attorney Stanley Rosenblatt, who worked on the case with his lawyer-wife, Susan. ``Everything the tobacco industry asked for was denied with one exception.'' In that instance, the high court dismissed the Miami-Dade jury's finding of fraud and misrepresentation by the industry -- its only victory on Thursday. Appellate Review Philip Morris said in a statement that it would seek further appellate review of the state Supreme Court's latest decision not to reconsider certain portions of its summer ruling. The company said that no Florida class member should be allowed to pursue individual damage claims until the next round of appeals is completed -- though it's unclear where Philip Morris would make its next appellate move. ''Although we continue to believe that the Florida Supreme Court's decision to reverse the punitive damages award and decertify the class was the correct one, Philip Morris USA believes there are important legal issues that deserve further consideration,'' said William Ohlemeyer, company vice president and associate general counsel. Philip Morris, the nation's largest cigarette maker, was joined in the appeal by R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard and the Liggett Group. All of the tobacco defendants, which have been embroiled in litigation for years, had never faced a class action of this kind. The Florida Supreme Court's ruling upheld part of a 2003 decision by the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami-Dade County, which threw out the punitive award and decertified the class. High Court's Switch But the high court differed with the appeals panel on practically all other issues -- including an appellate ruling that said trial Judge Robert Kaye had wrongly allowed the Miami-Dade jury to consider punitive damages for the class before each member first proved individual claims. A majority of the state Supreme Court -- Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis and Justices Harry Lee Anstead, Barbara J. Pariente and Peggy A. Quince -- ruled that Kaye did not overstep his authority when he certified the class. But the justices also said the Florida smokers have ''highly individualized'' medical histories that ``do not lend themselves to class-action treatment.''
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A Feast
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