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February 9, 2010 |
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| April 16, 2008 |
By: Billy Shields |
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Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt
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iami-Dade Circuit Judge David C. Miller awarded $218 million in legal fees Tuesday to Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt for years of work they put into now-defunct class action litigation against the nation’s biggest cigarette markers.
“I find it very reasonable,” Miller said from the bench, referring to fee calculations estimating they worked for 77 hours a week on average at an hourly rate of $274. “These are reasonable and conservative hours.”
“In fact, in some firms that would not have been acceptable billing,” he joked before a courtroom packed with at least 200 people.
Tobacco attorney Robert Heim, a partner with Dechert in Philadelphia, told Miller “it would be wrong under common fund law” to award fees to the Rosenblatts, saying a guardian ad litem should be appointed to administer a fund “to protect the interests of the class.”
The fees would come out of a common “guaranteed fund” of about $800 million that Big Tobacco put up as collateral in 2001 to appeal the record $145 billion punitive verdict the Rosenblatt’s won against cigarette makers. The verdict was later thrown out by the Florida Supreme Court along with a class certification order uniting sick smokers in a single lawsuit.
Miller still must determine how to distribute the rest of the $800 million fund.
Rosenblatt railed against Big Tobacco as he argued Tuesday before Miller for fees in the case dating back to 1994. The two-year trial marked the first time tobacco executives acknowledged in court that smoking causes illness and is addictive.
“For close to half a century, there were all these high-priced lawyers saying, ‘Ah, it’s all about willpower. It’s not addictive,” he said. Describing the industry’s legal tactics, Rosenblatt said, “There’s a word in Yiddish. It’s chutzpah.”
Rosenblatt had little to say after a ruling on the Miami husband-and-wife firm’s huge payday. Given the industry track record in the case, an appeal is assured.
Plaintiffs and attorneys from around the state whom Rosenblatt had never met took the podium to recommend that Miller grant him fees.
“It was just incredibly gratifying,” he said. “We were impressed.”
The plaintiffs largely belong to the roughly 8,000 lawsuits dubbed “the Engle progeny,” the offspring of the famous class action filed on behalf of Miami Beach pediatrician Howard Engle. The case became known as Engle v. Liggett as it moved through the courts.
A line to speak in support of the Rosenblatts’ fee request ran out of the room. Many people at the hearing were visibly ill or relatives of deceased smokers.
Gene Anthony Hitchens, for example, came to the hearing with an oxygen tank and tubes running to his nose. He carried the tank with him when he spoke before the judge.
 Multimedia: Slideshow of the trial here
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Tobacco lawyers argued the Rosenblatts had no right to the money because the punitive award was overturned and because the fund might be used for punitive awards in the Engle spinoffs.
“Much of the case, including the entire $145 billion class-wide punitive damages award, has been resolved in defendants’ favor and the ultimate benefit of the litigation to class members is yet to be determined,” Heim wrote for the industry in opposition to attorney fees.
The fee petition put the people in the room in a bit of an awkward position. The Rosenblatts stumped for their own role in starting litigation that other attorneys are pursuing now, and the Engle progeny attorneys supported them.
“I don’t see the problem. He worked hard,” said Carl Grant of Fort Lauderdale. His father George smoked for most of his life and died in 1983 from emphysema and heart disease. “It ain’t no free ride. They earned it.”
New Engle lawyers, including the ostentatious Willie Gary, agreed.
“When I think of the jobs they’ve done for the people, it gives new meaning to the words ‘hard work,’” he told Miller.
The work they did was to lay the groundwork for much of the litigation against the tobacco industry in Florida. And while the verdict was tossed and the class disbanded, the findings of the jury in the case the Rosenblatt’s litigated can be used for future cases.
Despite decertifying the class, The Florida Supreme Court upheld the findings of the Miami jury in the original Engle case that will guide individual smoker cases going forward. Juries in individual Engle progeny cases will be advised to accept as proven that nicotine is addictive and smoking causes cancer and more than a dozen other illnesses.
Future juries considering damages also will be told tobacco companies were negligent, placed defective and unreasonably dangerous products on the market and defrauded consumers by misleading them.
But cigarette makers are not going to accept the findings as mere givens when the individual cases go to trial. Defense attorneys around the state look at the jury findings as being open for interpretation.
Attorneys representing smokers insist tobacco attorneys have employed creative stalling tactics to allow sick smokers to die before their cases can be heard, a charge tobacco attorneys dismiss.
Miller said he wants to expedite the proceedings.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” he said.
Billy Shields can be reached at bshields@alm.com or at (305) 347-6649.
Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt photo by A.M. Holt
Reader's comments
Robert Allen said:I agree with the Judge, lets expedite these hearings. April 16 at 7:19 a.m.
anon said:Rosenblatt LOST this case. The class he had certified was de-certified, and not one of his clients has been paid. He shouldn't see a thin dime for this fiasco. April 17 at 3:39 p.m.
steve said:What an amusing concept! Take on a contingent case, lose and still claim fees because what you did could be used in future cases. The Rosenblatts did nothing for the plaintiffs, but want to get something in return for their time. April 17 at 5:30 p.m.
Tobacco shareholder said The judge grants the Rosenblatts $218 million for a fraudlent class action suit. That is my money not his. He didn't prove his case in the court room so why reward him with money. Crazy.... April 18 at 12:53 a.m. |
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