US jury awards smoker’s widow €17bn

Tobacco firm describes the damages as ‘grossly excessive’

A Florida jury has hammered America’s second biggest cigarette maker with punitive damages of $23.6bn (€17bn) in a case brought by the widow of a long-time smoker who died of lung cancer in 1996.

The RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company case is one of thousands filed in Florida after the state supreme court threw out a $145bn (€107bn) class action verdict in 2006. That ruling also said smokers and their families needed only prove addiction and that smoking caused their illnesses or deaths.