Can you say Res Judicata?

The 11th Circuit District Court of Appeals heard arguments on Tuesday about whether or not a finding by the Florida Supreme Court was applicable in their own federal trial. The case is Brown v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.; the litigation is something we've seen quite a bit over the past 20 years: a widow is seeking damages for the death of her husband due to smoking and lung cancer. The causal effect of smoking to lung cancer and other such diseases has been proven in a court room many times. More specifically, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the misrepresentations of the tobacco companies and the effects of cigarette smoke no longer need to be proven; since these things have already been so well established in prior litigation. After several class actions in Florida, the FL Supreme Court held that prior jury decisions in two instances can no longer be denied by the tobacco companies. Therefore, the tobacco companies cannot say that they "never made a false statement"; nor can they deny that smoking causes aortic aneurysm, bladder cancer, coronary heart disease, and lung cancer in a Florida Court.


In the Brown case, the plaintiffs are arguing that the decision by the Florida Supreme Court should be applicable to their federal civil trial in the 11th Circuit. The defendants argue that it's two different jurisdictions and that the decision is not specific enough to establish negligence without additional proof.


I'm forced to retreat to the federal civil procedure definition of res judicata learned in law school. The three elements of res judicata are: (1) a final judgment on the merits; (2) a second suit involving the same cause of action; and (3) identical parties or parties in privity. It would appear that since the defendants are the same, the action is the same, and that it was determined by a final judgment on the merits, the defendants might be out of luck. The idea of res judicata is to speed up the process of judgment and to prevent the same cause of action from being re-litigated over and over, tying up our judicial system. However, just because it has been proven in court that the tobacco companies have made false statements and that their product has negligently caused such horrific diseases leading to the deaths of individuals, does it stand that ALL smokers should get a free pass to damages?


The compromise that the judges seem to be leading toward with all their questions and hypos during oral arguments is that while the tobacco companies cannot argue they were never negligent; they certainly should have the right to argue that they were not negligent with regard to a specific plaintiff with specific factual differences from the plaintiffs in the other suits. Since no two scenarios are the same and since causation is a MAJOR element of negligence; the companies should certainly be allowed to convince a jury that while they may have been negligent with respect to some individuals; they've not been negligent towards ALL individuals.