May 23, 2017
With the Eleventh Circuit's en banc ruling Thursday in a smoker's suit against R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris, Engle progeny plaintiffs dodged a federal-state court split that might have given the U.S. Supreme Court incentive to weigh in on whether plaintiffs could use the landmark tobacco class action's jury findings to buttress their strict liability and negligence claims.
May 18, 2017
The Eleventh Circuit handed smokers a win Thursday with a ruling that says federal law does not bar them from using the landmark Engle tobacco class action's jury findings to establish strict liability and negligence claims.
May 02, 2017
A widower whose wife died of smoking-related lung cancer told the Eleventh Circuit on Monday that a recent Florida Supreme Court ruling that federal law does not preempt Engle progeny plaintiffs' strict liability and negligence claims against tobacco companies has no bearing on his case, in which R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris have abandoned the preemption argument.
August 25, 2016
R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris on Wednesday told the Eleventh Circuit that a Florida state court's opinion in another suit descended from the landmark Engle case shows that due process problems with the jury's finding in the original litigation cannot be avoided.
June 21, 2016
R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris told the Eleventh Circuit Tuesday that allowing individual plaintiffs to use the landmark Engle tobacco class action's jury findings — which they called "ambiguous on their face" — to establish strict liability and negligence claims is a departure from settled law and a violation of their due process rights.
June 08, 2016
R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris told the Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday that the landmark Engle tobacco class action's findings are "useless" for establishing a Florida man's strict liability and negligence claims, arguing that allowing him to rely on the determinations would violate their due process rights.
May 24, 2016
The lawyers representing Engle progeny plaintiffs in Florida state courts told the Eleventh Circuit it shouldn't consider R.J. Reynolds' assertions that reliance on the landmark case's jury findings violates the cigarette maker's due process rights because the issue has already been decided by the Florida Supreme Court.
April 22, 2016
R.J. Reynolds told the Eleventh Circuit that a smoker's widower cannot rely on the landmark Engle case's jury findings to establish strict liability and negligence claims, arguing Friday that imposing liability violates the tobacco company's due process rights and is federally preempted.
February 17, 2016
The widower of a smoker embroiled in Engle progeny litigation with R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco companies shot back Tuesday at the companies' request that the Eleventh Circuit rethink a due process issue, saying it's an attempt to improperly sway the panel's decision-making.
February 02, 2016
The Eleventh Circuit's decision to rehear whether findings in the landmark Engle tobacco class action can be used to establish strict liability and negligence remains intact, after the appellate court's chief judge recused himself, forcing a revote on the Jan. 21 decision, according to an order filed Tuesday.