$5 Million Verdict for Family of Marlboro Smoker Who Died of Lung Cancer Years After Quitting

Robert Hoffman started smoking Marlboro cigarettes as a teenager. He quit before he turned 30, more than a decade before he was ever diagnosed with cancer. When lung cancer appeared, it killed him at 46. His family brought a wrongful death claim against Philip Morris, arguing the cigarettes that hooked him during his teenage years set the biological process in motion that took his life.

The case was one of thousands of individual lawsuits arising from the Engle class action, a 1990s Florida proceeding in which the state supreme court ultimately decertified the class but preserved certain findings that individual plaintiffs could carry into their own trials. Under the Engle progeny framework, the Hoffman family needed to show that Robert was addicted to cigarettes containing nicotine and that his addiction caused a smoking-related disease.

Philip Gerson of Gerson and Schwartz handled the case in Miami-Dade Circuit Court before Judge Vivianne Del Rio. Trial ran nine days, from January 9 to January 20, 2023. The plaintiff's medical team included an oncologist and a pathologist, both of whom identified the lung tumor as primary adenocarcinoma of the right lung and attributed it to Robert's prior smoking. Philip Morris countered that the long gap between his last cigarette and the cancer diagnosis, roughly 15 years, undercut any causal link, and that other factors could explain his illness.

The jury rejected that defense. It found Philip Morris 60 percent responsible and Robert Hoffman 40 percent comparatively at fault for his own damages. The gross award was $5 million. The 60 percent apportionment to Philip Morris meant the effective judgment against the company was approximately $3 million.

Philip Morris appealed. Florida's Third District Court of Appeal issued its opinion on May 1, 2024, in case number 3D23-0751, affirming the trial court's judgment. The verdict for the Hoffman family stood.