Miscellaneous Articles

Ten cents says Phillip Morris will either win on appeal or else the jury award will be reduced to next to nothing.

Details:

Lucinda Naugle, the 61-year-old sister of a former Fort Lauderdale mayor, was awarded $56 million in compensatory damages and $244 million in punitive damages Thursday after a three-week trial and three hours of jury deliberation in Broward County Circuit Court.

Ms. Naugle, an office manager, had started smoking when she was 20 and quit when she was 45 years old, her lawyer, Robert W. Kelley of Fort Lauderdale, said in a telephone interview Friday. She now has severe emphysema and needs a lung transplant she cannot afford, he said.

The jury assigned her 10 percent of the liability for her smoking and disease, and Philip Morris 90 percent.

“She’ll get paid, I would hope, within a year or two,” Mr. Kelley said. “The question is will she live long enough.”