Products Liability Law Reporter

A Florida appellate court held that because a plaintiff had failed to establish causation related to his failure-to-warn or design defect claims against a tobacco company, a trial court had erred in denying the defendant’s motion for a directed verdict in a non-Engle lawsuit.

Roosevelt Gordon smoked cigarettes manufactured by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. from 1954 to 2018, when he was diagnosed as having chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). He sued R.J. Reynolds, alleging claims for strict liability and ordinary negligence and asserting that a design defect in the defendant’s cigarettes caused him to develop COPD. Specifically, the plaintiff asserted that the alleged defects were the defendant’s use of flue-cured tobacco, which rendered the cigarettes inhalable, and the manipulation of nicotine to make cigarettes more addictive. The plaintiff also claimed that the defendant had negligently failed to warn him of the risks of smoking before 1969, when warnings were placed on all of R.J. Reynolds’s cigarettes.

The defense moved for a directed verdict, arguing that the plaintiff had presented no evidence that a warning before 1969 would have affected his smoking habit. The plaintiff also presented no evidence that a defect in the cigarettes had caused his COPD, the defense argued. The trial court denied the motion, and a jury found for the plaintiff on the strict liability and negligence claims. The jury did not specify whether the verdict was based on negligent design or failure to warn. The plaintiff died shortly after trial, and the defendant appealed.

Reversing, the court found that under Florida law, a strict products liability action based on design defect requires a plaintiff to prove that a product produced by a manufacturer was defective or created an unreasonably dangerous condition that proximately caused injury. To prove a products liability claim sounding in negligence, the court said, a plaintiff must show a duty of care, breach of that duty, injury, proximate cause, and a defective and unreasonably dangerous product. Citing case law, the court emphasized that in all tort cases—whether strict liability or negligence—causation must be established before recovery will be allowed. Before a plaintiff’s case can be presented to a jury, evidence must have been admitted proving that, absent the defendant’s negligence or an alleged design defect, the plaintiff more likely than not would not have been injured or suffered damages, the court said.

Applying these principles here, the court found that the plaintiff was required to present evidence that either the defendant’s design or its failure to warn of the health risks of smoking before 1969 would have more likely than not caused him to suffer his fatal lung disease. The court found no evidence had been presented that the defendant’s failure to warn the plaintiff of the dangers of smoking led to his COPD. The plaintiff testified that he had ignored the warnings R.J. Reynolds provided on the cigarettes he smoked after 1969, the court said, adding that the plaintiff also testified that he had not read the warnings. Accordingly, the court concluded that no evidence was presented that had the plaintiff been warned for the 15 years before 1969, he would have heeded those warnings and stopped smoking. Any failure to warn by the defendant from 1954 to 1969 cannot sustain a negligence verdict, the court thus held, adding that no expert had testified that the plaintiff’s condition resulted from smoking before 1969.

The court also found that the plaintiff had not presented any evidence that the defendant’s cigarettes had a design defect that proximately caused him to suffer any injury before 1969. The court noted that there was no defect in the defendant’s products, which were designed to be inhalable and to contain nicotine. The plaintiff thus presented no competent evidence showing there was something wrong with the defendant’s product, the court found. Even if a rational jury could find the defendant’s cigarette design to be defective, the plaintiff did not present any evidence that the design involving nicotine manipulation led to the plaintiff’s illness. None of the plaintiff’s experts, the court said, could testify that any alleged manipulation of the nicotine in the defendant’s products had any link to the plaintiff’s development of COPD. They simply testified that nicotine is linked to the disease, leaving the jury to speculate on this issue impermissibly, the court found.

Consequently, the court directed the trial court to grant a directed verdict for the defense on both the plaintiff’s negligence and strict liability claims.

Citation: R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Nelson, 2022 WL 17173935 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. Nov. 23, 2022).