$6.8 Million Verdict for Widow of WWII-Era Smoker Who Died of RJR-Caused Lung Cancer

Valton Sheffield started smoking at age 16 and kept at least a pack-a-day habit for more than forty years. He quit around 1985, but the damage was done. In 1994 surgeons removed a lobe of his lung to treat cancer. The disease came back in 2003 and again in 2006, each time taking more lung tissue. He died in 2007 at age 88. His wife of sixty years, Mary Sheffield, brought a wrongful-death lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company as one of thousands of Engle progeny cases working through Florida courts after the Florida Supreme Court decertified the class in 2006.

The trial ran May 1 through 12, 2017, in Orange County before Judge Julie O'Kane. Colling Gilbert Wright and Carter attorney Melvin Wright, joined by co-counsel David Sales, argued that Reynolds had concealed the health risks of its cigarettes and that nicotine addiction, not free choice, locked Valton Sheffield into decades of smoking. Defense attorneys Emily Baker and Jack Williams of Jones Day countered that Sheffield shared responsibility for his own choices. The jury apportioned fault 60 percent to Reynolds and 40 percent to Sheffield.

In phase one the jury awarded $1.8 million in compensatory damages. In phase two it returned an additional $5 million in punitive damages, bringing the total verdict to $6.8 million.

On appeal, the Fifth District Court of Appeal reversed the punitive award. The court held that Florida's 1999 statutory amendments capping punitive damages applied to this case because the wrongful-death cause of action arose at the time of Valton Sheffield's death in 2007, not when his underlying lung injury first occurred in 1994. The Florida Supreme Court, in Sheffield v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., No. SC19-601 (Fla. Nov. 18, 2021), approved that result, settling a recurring question in Engle progeny litigation about which damages rules govern wrongful-death claims.