Rejecting arguments by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the Florida Supreme Court said Thursday that plaintiffs can recover attorney fees after the cigarette maker rejected initial offers to settle a case.
The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the family of Lois Stucky, who died of lung cancer.
Before trial, attorneys for the plaintiffs made settlement offers to R.J. Reynolds for $75,000 and $749,000, both of which were rejected.
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A jury awarded the plaintiffs $300,000 in compensatory damages and $16 million in punitive damages, but the Supreme Court in January rejected the punitive-damages award as “excessive.”
The plaintiff sought to require R.J. Reynolds to pay attorney fees incurred during the appeal, according to Thursday’s ruling.
That request was based on the tobacco company’s rejection of the initial settlement offers and what is known as an “offer-of-judgment statute.”
R.J. Reynolds disputed that it should pay the attorney fees, but the Supreme Court said Thursday that the “offer-of-judgment statute operates to penalize a party who refuses to accept a good-faith, reasonable proposal for settlement as reflected in the ensuing final judgment. The statute has this effect even if the party seeking fees does not prevail at trial or in appellate proceedings, but is otherwise entitled to fees pursuant to the offer-of-judgment statute.”
The opinion said the award of attorney fees in the case remains “conditioned upon the trial court’s finding of entitlement and determination of amount.”
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