Product Liability: Florida Jury Finds that Cigarettes Caused Smoker's Disease

2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-197
Author(s):  
Matthew Morton
Keyword(s):  
Health Risks ◽  
Tobacco Industry ◽  
Product Liability ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Punitive Damage ◽  
Punitive Damages ◽  
The Public ◽  
Former Smokers ◽  
Compensatory Damages ◽  
First Time

On April 7,2000 a Florida jury ordered the tobacco industry to pay $12.7 million in compensatory damages to three former smokers who were chosen to represent hundreds of thousands of Florida residents in an unprecedented class action lawsuit. The decision not only marks the first time that a jury has found on behalf of smokers in a class action lawsuit, it also sets the stage for a huge punitive damage award against the industry. The awards followed a finding by the same jury last July that the cigarette manufacturers have “acted with reckless disregard” and “engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct” while conspiring to mislead the public about the health risks of smoking. These previous findings make it likely that there will be punitive damages levied against the tobacco companies when the jury reconvenes in May.

Punitive Damages: New Twists in Torts

1991 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clarence C. Walton
Keyword(s):  
Tort Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Punitive Damage ◽  
Punitive Damages ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Purse ◽  
Local Organizations ◽  
Compensation Systems ◽  
Tort System ◽  
American Law

While jurisprudence in the United States has been cast in the general mode of the English common law, modifications over time have produced enough significant variations that American law has a distinctive quality. To illustrate: The exclusionary rule in criminal cases prohibiting the use of evidence (even from reliable witnesses) acquired through illegal search, is not followed in Britain—or, for that matter, in Canada, Germany, and Israel. The punitive-damage concept (PD) in tort law is also a jurisprudential novelty. Punitive damages are imposed in addition to compensatory awards given to tort victims to warn manufacturers and sellers to be careful in their safety and marketing practices. PDs are society's warning signals: Seller beware! Because they are one of society's ways to protect itself, PDs have recently been considered as fines which, to prevent excesses, should be under the rubric of the Eighth Amendment.This essay introduces new elements into the discussion on torts by hypothesizing (1) PDs are fines which belong to the public purse; (2) that expenditures from the public purse should be given to local organizations (like orphanages and inner-city hospitals) which provide vital services for those unable to pay; and (3) that the victim (or the victim's survivor) has a right to designate what local organizations should benefit from his or her punitive-damage awards.The hypotheses require reexamination of the concepts of citizenship, community, and work, respectively.Tort law is an integral part of the American law of injuries, a body of judicial doctrine and legislation and a set of legal arrangements that also include compensation systems and safety legislation. It would have been unthinkable as recently as twenty-five years ago that the tort system would become a source of bitter contention. Today, however, it generates sharp rhetoric and dramatic proposals for change to address its contested problems, as well as strong views in favor of continuing the system essentially intact so as not to disturb its contended benefits.

Punitive Damages Awards in Civil Litigation; Effects of Profit Information and Amount of Pain and Suffering Award

2002 ◽  
Vol 46 (10) ◽  
pp. 880-884 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth R. Laughery ◽  
Danielle L. Paige ◽  
Michael S. Wogalter ◽  
Richard N. Bean
Keyword(s):  
Punitive Damage ◽  
Civil Litigation ◽  
Punitive Damages ◽  
Damage Awards ◽  
A Value ◽  
Pain And Suffering ◽  
The Law ◽  
Compensatory Damages ◽  
Judicial Procedures ◽  
Jury Decisions

A study addressing jury decisions regarding punitive damages awards in civil litigation was carried out. Two issues explored were the feet that jurors typically do not have a good metric for assigning a value to such damages and the concept of “leakage.” The latter concept refers to decisions regarding compensatory damages and punitive damages influencing each other; in the law they are supposed to be independent. Forty-two participants were given three scenarios describing accidents, injuries, liability outcomes, and the amounts of economic and non-economic (pain and suffering) awards. Their task was to decide on punitive damages awards. Two variables manipulated in the scenarios were the presence or absence of defendant profit information and the amount (high or low) of the pain and suffering award. Results indicated the main effects of the two variables were not statistically significant. A significant interaction between the profit-information and pain-and-suffering-amount variables indicated that when profit infonnation was available, low pain and suffering awards led to higher punitive damage awards. When profit information was not available, high pain and suffering awards led to higher punitive damage awards. The results indicate that decisions regarding compensatory and punitive damages are not independent as the law intends; an outcome that may be due, at least in part, to the uncertainty associated with these types of decisions. These findings have implications for judicial procedures, particularly jury instructions.

Medical Autonomy and Modern Healthcare

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Flanigan
Keyword(s):  
Product Liability ◽  
Medical Decision ◽  
Medical Providers ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Public Provision ◽  
Self Medication ◽  
Medical Decisions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Patient’S Rights ◽  
Access Information

Though rights of self-medication needn’t change medical decision-making for most patients, rights of self-medication have the potential to transform other aspects of healthcare as it is currently practiced. For example, if public officials respected patient’s authority to make medical decisions without authorization from a regulator or a physician, then they should also respect patient’s authority to choose to use unauthorized medical devices and medical providers. And many of the same reasons in favor of rights of self-medication and against prohibitive regulations are also reasons to support patient’s rights to access information about pharmaceuticals, including pharmaceutical advertisements. Rights of self-medication may also call for revisions to existing standards of product liability and prompt officials to rethink justifications for the public provision of healthcare.

Tort Liability

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Adelstein
Keyword(s):  
Class Action ◽  
Corrective Justice ◽  
External Costs ◽  
Tort Liability ◽  
Compensatory Damages

Torts are involuntary seizures of entitlements of a certain kind in a particular exchange environment, and tort liability attempts to ensure that tortfeasors compensate their victims for the costs these takings impose. Liability is the law’s answer to externality. It doesn’t seek to deter torts absolutely, but to control them through the principle of corrective justice, which separates efficient from inefficient torts by liability prices and deters only the latter. This chapter examines how these involuntary exchanges are governed by tort liability to do corrective justice and imperfectly completed through individual and class action tort suits for compensatory damages. Tort liability is shown to effectively encourage efficient torts, in which the value of the unlawful cost imposition to the tortfeasor exceeds the external costs of the tort, and thus provide a means to move entitlements to higher-valuing owners in an environment of involuntary takings by private takers.

scholarly journals Harm Perceptions and Beliefs about Potential Modified Risk Tobacco Products

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 576
Author(s):  
Jennifer C. Morgan ◽  
Joseph N. Cappella
Keyword(s):  
Lower Risk ◽  
Tobacco Products ◽  
The Public ◽  
Quit Smoking ◽  
Former Smokers ◽  
Use Factors

Under US law, tobacco products may be authorized to claim lower exposure to chemicals, or lower risk of health harms. We sought to examine the harm perceptions and beliefs about potential modified risk tobacco products (MRTPs). We recruited 864 adult current and former smokers in August 2019. Participants read a paragraph describing the potential for the FDA to authorize MRTPs and a brief description of MRTPs. The most endorsed beliefs for each product were that they contained nicotine and that they were risky. Believing that e-cigarettes can help smokers quit smoking, that they tasted good, and looked cool were associated with greater odds of intending to try e-cigarettes after controlling for demographic and use factors. For snus, the beliefs that the product was not addictive and tasted good were associated with increased odds of intending to try snus. The beliefs that heated tobacco would taste good and would be a good quit aid was associated with increased odds of intentions to try heated tobacco products. Understanding what the public believes about products currently or potentially authorized to be marketed as modified risk tobacco products can inform communication efforts.

“Satisfied with the Ruins of Berlin”: The German Capital’s Image in Soviet Graphics of 1945

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 564-575
Author(s):  
Irina I. Rutsinskaya
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Public ◽  
Historical Justice ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Post War ◽  
The One ◽  
First Time ◽  
The City

An artist who finds themselves in the last days of a war in the enemy’s defeated capital may not just fix its objects dispassionately. Many factors influence the selection and depicturing manner of the objects. One of the factors is satisfaction from the accomplished retribution, awareness of the historical justice triumph. Researchers think such reactions are inevitable. The article offers to consider from this point of view the drawings created by Soviet artists in Berlin in the spring and summer of 1945. Such an analysis of the German capital’s visual image is conducted for the first time. It shows that the above reactions were not the only ones. The graphics of the first post-war days no less clearly and consistently express other feelings and intentions of their authors: the desire to accurately document and fix the image of the city and some of its structures in history, the happiness from the silence of peace, and the simple interest in the monuments of European art.The article examines Berlin scenes as evidences of the transition from front-line graphics focused on the visual recording of the war traces to peacetime graphics; from documentary — to artistry; from the worldview of a person at war — to the one of a person who lived to victory. In this approach, it has been important to consider the graphic images of Berlin in unity with the diary and memoir texts belonging to both artists and ordinary soldiers who participated in the storming of Berlin. The combination of verbal and visual sources helps to present the German capital’s image that existed in the public consciousness, as well as the specificity of its representation by means of visual art.

Opening the Public Accessibility to the Wreckage of the RMS Titanic: Some Ethical Reflections

2021 ◽  
pp. 245592962110534
Author(s):  
Alberto Frigerio
Keyword(s):  
Public Access ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ethical Approaches ◽  
Ethical Reflections ◽  
First Time

In 2021, Ocean Gate Expeditions allowed people to visit the remains of the RMS Titanic. While this is not the first time that the site has been accessed for touristic aims, this case has, once again, opened the debate about the ethics of such experiences. The key dilemma is if permitting the public access to a natural graveyard, such as the wreck of the Titanic, should be considered as an acceptable practice or an immoral act that must be banned. Notwithstanding the sensitive arguments raised against the organization of similar initiatives, the visit to the RMS Titanic seems to be a valuable and legitimate practice according to diverse ethical approaches.

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