$591 Million Verdict Orders Big Tobacco to Fund Louisiana Smoker Cessation Program
Won by Herman, Katz, Gisleson & Cain.
A New Orleans jury ordered the major tobacco companies to fund a statewide smoking-cessation program for more than 200,000 Louisiana smokers who became addicted before 1988, awarding $591 million in one of the largest class-action verdicts against the tobacco industry.
What happened
For nearly four decades, the tobacco industry publicly denied that cigarettes were addictive, even as its own internal research documented nicotine dependence. In Louisiana, a class of smokers who became addicted before September 1, 1988, sued five major companies, American Tobacco, Brown and Williamson, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and Lorillard, alleging the companies had fraudulently concealed what they knew about addiction and harm.
The case, Scott v. American Tobacco, was filed in the mid-1990s in Orleans Parish Civil District Court. It took fourteen years to reach a final resolution. Russ M. Herman and Stephen J. Herman of Herman, Herman, Katz and Cotlar, LLP served as counsel for the plaintiff class, working alongside co-counsel from several Louisiana firms.
At trial, the plaintiffs focused on internal tobacco-company documents showing that executives were aware nicotine was addictive long before the surgeon general issued public warnings. The class asked the jury not for individual compensatory damages but for a different remedy: a court-supervised, ten-year smoking-cessation program funded by the defendants and available statewide to eligible class members.
In 2004, the Orleans Parish jury returned a verdict of $591 million, directing that money toward the cessation program. It was among the largest tobacco verdicts in the country and the largest class-action verdict in Louisiana history at the time. The Lawdragon Hall of Fame editorial profile of Russ Herman noted the result and described the case as one of the defining victories of his career.
The tobacco companies appealed. In April 2010, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal upheld liability but recalculated the funding formula based on revised estimates of eligible class members, reducing the judgment to approximately $241.5 million (including a five-percent administrative fee). The appellate court also adjusted when interest began to accrue. The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in June 2011, and the defendants ultimately deposited funds to establish the Louisiana Smoking Cessation Trust, which provided cessation services to the plaintiff class.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Herman, Katz, Gisleson & Cain
All Herman, Katz, Gisleson & Cain proven verdicts →As chair of the plaintiffs' negotiating committee and Liaison Counsel in the Vioxx multidistrict litigation, Russ Herman directed the negotiations that produced a $4.85 billion settlement with Merck resolving approximately 45,000 to 50,000 personal-injury claims.
Representing more clergy abuse survivors in the Archdiocese of New Orleans bankruptcy than any other firm, Herman, Katz, Gisleson and Cain helped push a five-year Chapter 11 proceeding to a $230 million settlement confirmed in December 2025, with additional recovery against Travelers Insurance still pending.
An Oklahoma lineman sent to help restore power after Hurricane Gustav was electrocuted near Jennings, Louisiana, when a line he had been told was dead was re-energized. He suffered severe burns, a partial foot amputation and lasting neurological injury. An Orleans Parish jury put 50 percent of the fault on Entergy, and the Fourth Circuit entered judgment against Entergy for its half of the amended damages, $4,811,015, which stood after the Louisiana Supreme Court denied review.
A 27-year-old longshoreman lost his left leg above the knee in December 1987 when a bundle of steel fell on him while he unloaded a barge in Peoria, Illinois. After a bench trial in New Orleans, the court entered judgment of $1,722,640 against the stevedore that had loaded the barge. The Fifth Circuit upheld the finding of negligence and the damages, sending back only the interest calculation.
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