RJ Reynolds has been ordered to pay the survivors of a woman who died of lung cancer a total of $17.5 million in damages, reports The Boston Globe.
Pamela Coyne smoked Winston cigarettes for 42 years, stopping about a year before lung cancer claimed her life in 2016 — and now RJ Reynolds has been ordered to pay her survivors a total of $17.5 million in damages.
Coyne’s husband, James, successfully persuaded a Middlesex Superior Court jury this week that RJ Reynolds should be held financially responsible for the Foxborough woman’s death by marketing a product harmful to consumers.
On Friday, the jury awarded punitive damages of $11.2 million, according to Mark Gottlieb, executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, which filed the suit on behalf of the Coynes. The jury had earlier this week awarded $6.3 million in compensatory damages.
