Tobacco companies in US to pay smoker $22m (£13.8m)

doi:10.1136/bmj.320.7240.957

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Deborah Josefson

San Francisco

A California jury has ordered two major tobacco companies to pay a dying former smoker $20m (£12.5m) in punitive damages. The same jury had previously awarded the plaintiff $1.7m in compensatory damages. The decision marks the first time that tobacco companies have been ordered to compensate an individual who began smoking after the Surgeon General's warnings appeared on cigarette packets. The San Francisco Superior Court found that the Philip Morris Company and RJ Reynolds Tobacco Holdings were each partially responsible for the …