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Broward jury awards
smoker's widower $5.3 million
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
cmarbin@MIamiHerald.com
A 92-year-old man was awarded more than $5.3 million
Thursday by a Broward County jury in a lawsuit in which
he claimed cigarettes made by Philip Morris caused his
wife's death in 1996.
Leon Barbanell sued the Richmond, Va.,
cigarette maker in Broward Circuit Court, claiming that
years of smoking led to lung cancer, which killed his
wife, Shirley Barbanell, who was 73. In an earlier phase
of the trial, a jury agreed that cigarettes caused Shirley
Barbanell's death.
Shirley Barbanell began smoking when she
was 16 and smoked two packs a day before she died, said
Steven J. Hammer, who represented Barbanell with another
lawyer, Jonathan Gdanski. She mostly smoked Marlboros.
``They got her when she was just a kid,'' Hammer said.
In 1994, Hammer said, the Barbanells watched
television as tobacco executives swore to Congress that
cigarettes were not linked to cancer. Shirley told her
husband she did not believe them, and added: ``If anything
happens to me, sue them,'' Hammer said.
Barbanell testified at the trial on July
28, his 92nd birthday, Hammer said.
Leon Barbanell was ``devastated'' by his
wife's death, and did not leave his home for three years,
Hammer said. He still speaks to his wife every night.
``Tonight, he will go to bed and say,
`Finally, we got them. Justice was done; the jury has
spoken.' ''
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