| The request came as the judge issued a plan fixing as early as next month the high-stakes, punitive-penalty phase of the Florida class-action suit. The new plan opens cigarette makers to potentially huge cash assessments years earlier than had been expected.
Under the plan ordered by Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Robert Kaye, the same jury which voted against cigarette makers will now decide whether to assess big punitive damages.
Punitive damages are often a multiple of actual, or compensatory, losses and usually account for the eyebrow-raising figures awarded by U.S. juries to defendants in lawsuits claiming misdeeds by big corporations. |
