Miami tobacco-lawsuit attorneys are honored
07/19/01
Susan and Stanley Rosenblatt, the Miami husband-and-wife legal team, have won the prestigious Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for their victory representing Florida smokers against the tobacco industry.
The Trial Lawyers for Public Justice Foundation honored the couple at an awards ceremony Tuesday in Montreal for making ``the greatest contribution to the public interest by trying a precedent-setting case in the past year.''
Stanley Rosenblatt said the 19th annual award was ``very gratifying'' for him and his wife.
Last summer, the Rosenblatts capped their class-action case, which began in 1994, against Philip Morris and four other tobacco companies with a record $145 billion punitive judgment in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. They represented an estimated 500,000 sick Florida smokers in the case.
The Rosenblatts shared the honor with C. Tab Turner, who won a major lawsuit against Ford Motor Co. and Bridgestone/Firestone.