MIAMI (AP) - The tobacco industry filed its appeal Monday of the trial that produced a record $145 billion verdict for sick Florida smokers.

The nation's biggest cigarette makers challenged decisions grouping all of the smokers under a single class-action lawsuit and attacked the punitive damage award as ``bankrupting and excessive.'' Pretrial decisions and the trial itself were riddled with defects and errors, including ``racially inflammatory arguments to a predominantly African-American jury'' by the smokers' attorney, the industry said. The 174-page appeal is the first stage of what is expected to be a prolonged legal battle over the verdict reached in July 2000 after a two-year trial. The appeal was filed with the 3rd District Court of Appeals in Miami, the initial venue for appeals in Florida. The trial was in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. Attorney Stanley Rosenblatt, who represented smokers, had no reaction to the appeal itself but expects to get longer than the standard 30 days to respond. ``Undoubtedly with the thickness of the appendix, we may very well need an extension. It's a massive amount of material,'' he said. ``I was advised it's in two boxes.'' The defendants are Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard and the Liggett Group. Liggett, the smallest of the industry's five biggest companies, did not join in on the joint appellate filing with the other companies.

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