Berger v. Philip Morris USA Inc.

49 F. Supp. 3d 1065, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 135524, 2014 WL 4783219
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Florida
DecidedSeptember 24, 2014
DocketCase No. 3:09-CV-14157
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 49 F. Supp. 3d 1065 (Berger v. Philip Morris USA Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Berger v. Philip Morris USA Inc., 49 F. Supp. 3d 1065, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 135524, 2014 WL 4783219 (M.D. Fla. 2014).

Opinion

ORDER

JAMES G. CARR, Senior District Judge.

This is an “Engle-progeny” tobacco product liability case, in which plaintiff Judith Berger sued defendant Philip Morris USA, Inc. (PMUSA) for injuries allegedly resulting from PMUSA’s tortious conduct.1

[1067]*1067A crucial issue in this case, trial of which recently concluded, was whether Mrs. Berger could use the “Engle findings” to establish her claims. Doing so requires membership in the decertified Engle class. To qualify for class membership (and thus, be eligible to use the “Engle findings”), Mrs. Berger had to prove, among other requirements, that her Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) “manifested” on or before November 21, 1996.

Before trial, the parties submitted disparate proposals on how properly to instruct the jury on manifestation. Florida law on this issue is unsettled, though presently is pending for resolution before the Florida Supreme Court. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Ciccone, SC13-2415, 2014 WL 2885424 (Fla. June 13, 2014).

Mrs. Berger contended that the Florida Supreme Court will affirm the decision in R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Ciccone, 123 So.3d 604 (Fla. 4th DCA 2013), review granted, SC13-2415, 2014 WL 2885424 (Fla. June 13, 2014).

PMUSA asserted that the Florida Supreme Court will endorse the decision in Castleman v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 97 So.3d 875 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012).

For the following reasons, I agreed with Mrs. Berger’s contention that it is more likely that the Court will affirm Ciccone and reject Castleman. I therefore fashioned my instruction on “manifested” on the basis of Ciccone. 123 So.3d at 614-617.

Discussion

1. Current Florida Law

The Florida Supreme Court in Engle stated that “the class should include only those people who were affected in the past or who were presently suffering [from a tobacco-related disease as of November 21, 1996,] the time the class was recertified by the trial court.” 945 So.2d at 1275. The critical event, the Court explained, “is not when an illness was actually diagnosed by a physician, but when the disease or condition first manifested itself.” Id.

Determination of the proper jury instruction thus necessitates an inquiry into what test accurately reflects the Florida Supreme Court’s intent in using the term “manifested.”

In Castleman, the plaintiffs smoking-related diseases or conditions had shown symptoms in the early 1990’s, but medical providers had not classified and described the condition as smoking-related until 1998. 97 So.3d at 876-77.

In attempting to decipher Engle’s use of the term “manifested,” the Court in Castleman turned to Frazier v. Philip Morris, 89 So.3d 937 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012), reh’g denied (June 8, 2012), review granted, SC12-1401, 2013 WL 7149427 (Fla. Sept. 3, 2013), where the Third District Court of Appeal considered when a smoking-related disease or condition manifested in the context of the statute of limitations for “creeping diseases,” see 97 So.3d at 876-77 (citing Frazier, 89 So.3d at 944), such as, in this case, COPD.2

[1068]*1068In Frazier, the Court borrowed language both from Engle regarding manifestation and class cut-off and, as well, from Florida products liability law relating to creeping diseases. Frazier, 89 So.3d at 944-45. The Court held that Florida’s four-year limitations statute accrues only when tobacco-related symptoms become manifest, that is, when they disclose to the prospective claimant the existence of a disease or medical condition caused by tobacco use. Id. (quoting Carter v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 778 So.2d 932, 934 (Fla.2000)) (citing Engle, 945 So.2d at 1246).

Adopting, apparently, a literal translation of the definition of manifestation from the statute of limitations, the Court in Castleman “applied] the reasoning in Frazier, [ ] concluding] that because [plaintiff] did not attribute his illness to his history of smoking until 1998, he was not aware 7880 of sufficient facts to permit the filing of a non-frivolous tort law suit against the tobacco company before 1998.” 97 So.3d at 877. Because “his conditions had not manifested themselves as tobacco-related illness ... on or before the cutoff date of November 21,1996,” plaintiff did not qualify for Engle class membership, making his lawsuit time barred. Id. (internal quotations omitted); accord Damianakis v. Philip Morris USA Inc., 2D13-246, 2014 WL 3537019 (Fla. 2d DCA 2014) (holding that the defendant had stipulated to the issue of when and where plaintiffs disease manifested, while appearing to favor a “causally related” standard); Rearick v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 68 So.3d 944, 945 (Fla. 3d DCA 2011) (“The qualification for membership in the Engle class requires plaintiff to show that the decedent was a resident of the state of Florida at the time of a ‘medical diagnosis’ of a smoking-related disease or at the time evidence of the causal relationship of the cause of action had [otherwise] manifested itself.”).

One year later, Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal in Ciccone adopted a far different approach to manifestation for Engle class purposes. Taking issue with borrowing the definition of “manifestation” from creeping disease statute of limitations cases, the Court stated that such an approach “fails to take into account the differences in policy between the accrual of a cause of action for [such] purposes and pinpointing a date for class membership by looking back in time from the 2006 Engle decision.” 123 So.3d at 612-13. The Florida Supreme Court’s intent in creating a manifestation requirement, according to Ciccone, was merely to keep the class from being open ended—not to impose limit potential Engle class members to persons who had known enough to file a non-frivolous tort lawsuit on or before November 21,1996. Mat614.

In seeking a “preferable definition,” Cic-cone attempted to capture a “key point in determining Engle class membership [-] pinpointing when the plaintiff began ‘suffering’ from the smoking-related illness or when the illness ‘manifested.’ ” Id. at 615 (citing Engle, 945 So.2d at 1275). The Court, looking to insurance coverage cases centering on “symptoms” as being a natural outgrowth of “suffering,” held that manifestation occurs at “[t]hat point in time when the sickness or disease becomes symptomatic and not necessarily when the exact nature of sickness or disease is diagnosed by a physician after extensive testing.” Id. at 616 (citing Preferred Risk Life Insurance Co. v. Sande, 421 So.2d 566 [1069]*1069(Fla. 5th DCA 1982)). On this basis, the Court upheld the trial court’s definition of manifestation as occurring “[when the deceased either] experienced symptoms of [the disease] or was diagnosed with [the disease] by a physician.” 123 So.3d at 607, 615.

2. Federal Engle-progeny Treatment

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Related

Harris v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
383 F. Supp. 3d 1315 (M.D. Florida, 2019)

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Bluebook (online)
49 F. Supp. 3d 1065, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 135524, 2014 WL 4783219, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/berger-v-philip-morris-usa-inc-flmd-2014.