Tobacco company must pay $12.5M to widow of man who died of lung disease, jury finds
James “Jim” McHugh started smoking when he was a teenager and continued to do so for nearly five decades.
He tried quitting cold turkey. He tried chewing gum. He even tried hypnosis. By the time he found a prescription medicine that could help him, he was a very sick man.
In 2009, McHugh, who was an officer in two Miami-Dade police departments and had served in the U.S. Marines, died at age 66 from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Now, more than 10 years after his death, his widow, Diane Snyder, was awarded a $12.5 million verdict Wednesday after an eight-day trial in Broward County court. The jury, which deliberated for five hours, found that the cigarette company, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., is partly responsible for his addiction to cigarettes and ultimate death.
The process leading up to Wednesday’s verdict, which took more than a decade, “was quite an experience,” Snyder said in a statement. McHugh and Snyder filed the suit in 2008, while McHugh was still alive.
Snyder expressed thanks to both her attorneys and the jury.
“It helped clear my mind and took a great weight off my shoulders,” she said.
An attorney representing R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. could not be reached for comment Friday.
Snyder’s attorneys, Catherine Darlson and Eric Rosen of Kelley | Uustal Trial Attorneys (during the trial Rosen left Kelley | Uustal for his own firm, Rosen Injury Law) said Wednesday’s verdict was the result of years of waiting.
“No verdict will bring Jim back, but after a hard-fought case we’re grateful to the jury for appreciating who Jim was and what losing him meant to Diane,” Darlson said. “Their time, attention and understanding was shown in this verdict.”
McHugh was raised in Philadelphia and met Diane at a bowling alley in 1962. They married two years later. In 1970, the couple moved to South Florida. McHugh served as a police officer in what was then the Miami Metro Police Department and then in the Surfside police department. He retired in 2004.
Soon after, his breathing became difficult and his health worsened. He finally quit in 2006 with the help of a prescription medicine, but until then, McHugh had smoked one to two packs a day. McHugh and Snyder filed the suit in 2008. He died in 2009.
At the heart of the lawsuit was the fact that in the 1980s, McHugh switched to True cigarettes because of ads saying they were better for smokers than other cigarettes.
Darlson said the ads played a huge role in convincing the jury that McHugh was led into believing that by smoking True cigarettes he was getting less tar and nicotine.
One of the ads: True. Easy on your mind. Easy on your taste.
While the jury ruled in Snyder’s favor, the tobacco company still has a chance to appeal the decision.
