Carlos A. Velasquez
Richard J. Dolan II
William R. Soler
Jillian M. Polanco
Chris Velasquez
A Weston woman who developed oral cancer after smoking for more than 30 years obtained a $14.5 million verdict—including $8 million in compensatory damages and $6.5 million in punitives—from a tobacco company Thursday.
The verdict, obtained for Carmenza Merino after a nearly three-week trial in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, is the third multimillion-dollar verdict in a tobacco case doled out in South Florida in the last two weeks. It is one of the so-called Engle tobacco cases.