Joe Nocera, Columnist

Florida’s Neverending Big Tobacco Lawsuits

The smoking wars have been smoldering for almost 25 years.

January 28, 2019 at 5:00 PM UTC

Joe Nocera is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He has written business columns for Esquire, GQ and the New York Times, and is the former editorial director of Fortune. He is the host and writer of the Bloomberg-Wondery podcast "The Shrink Next Door."

Illustration: George Wylesol for Bloomberg Businessweek

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This article is part of the February 4, 2019 issue of businessweek.

Cote v. Philip Morris USA
Case No. 15-15633

① THE ORIGIN
Remember the tobacco wars of the 1990s? Among the many lawsuits aimed at bringing down Big Tobacco was a class action, Engle v. Liggett Group Inc., filed in Florida in 1994. Six years later, finding that the tobacco companies had hidden the deadly nature of cigarettes, a jury awarded the plaintiffs $145 billion in punitive damages. Alas, six years after that, the Florida Supreme Court reversed that award and decertified the class. End of litigation, right? Not so fast …