Judge blocks tobacco bid to oust him from case
08/10/99
A Florida judge spurned a tobacco industry demand he step aside and will stay on to oversee follow-up trials to a sweeping sick-smokers verdict against U.S. cigarette makers, a court official said on Tuesday.
After losing the first stage of the high-profile case on July 7, tobacco industry lawyers last week asked Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Robert Kaye to remove himself from the follow-up trials.
Big Tobacco faces cash damages as high as $200 billion to $500 billion in the follow-up trials, which in theory could involve the claims of as many as 1 million sick Florida smokers or their survivors.
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