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STANLEY AND SUSAN ROSENBLATT OF FLORIDA AND
TAB TURNER OF ARKANSAS WIN 2001 TRIAL LAWYER OF THE YEAR AWARD

Award Shared between Rosenblatts for Engle Tobacco Victory and
Turner for Ford/Firestone Settlement and Advocacy

Stanley M. Rosenblatt and Susan Rosenblatt of the Law Offices of Stanley M. Rosenblatt in Miami, Florida, and C. Tab Turner of Turner & Associates in North Little Rock, Arkansas, were awarded the 2001 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award by The TLPJ Foundation at its 19th Anniversary Gala July 14 in Montreal. The Rosenblatts were honored for their work in Engle v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Turner was honored for his work in Bailey v. Ford Motor Co. The award is bestowed annually upon the trial lawyer(s) who made the greatest contribution to the public interest by trying or settling a precedent-setting case in the past year. It is the single most prestigious honor given to trial lawyers.

"These outstanding attorneys offer powerful examples of how trial lawyers play a crucial role in exposing and redressing corporate misconduct," said outgoing Foundation President Peter Perlman of Lexington, Kentucky. "We are proud to honor them for their tireless work for public health and safety."

The Rosenblatts won a precedent-shattering $145 billion punitive damages verdict in Engle on behalf of some 500,000 Florida smokers in a products liability class action against the entire tobacco industry. This is the largest damages award in

Photo of attorneys Susan Rosenblatt and Stanley Rosenblatt Susan and Stanley M. Rosenblatt
any case. The husband-and-wife team fought for seven years to achieve the remarkable result, securing three verdicts in the process. First, the jury found in July 1999 that smoking causes 20 diseases and that each of the nine defendant companies was liable for both negligence and intentional wrongdoing. Second, in April 2000, the jury found that the defendants’ misconduct had caused the injuries to the three class representatives and awarded them $12.7 million – the highest compensatory damages verdict ever in tobacco litigation. Third, the multi-billion dollar punitive damages verdict came in July 2000.

To keep the plaintiffs from challenging the constitutionality of a new Florida law that places a $100 million cap on appeal bonds, three defendants – Philip Morris, Lorillard, and Liggett – then agreed in May 2001 to pay $710 million regardless of the appeal’s outcome. The guarantee is the industry’s first major financial commitment directly to smokers.

Turner obtained a multi-million dollar settlement from Ford Motor Company and Bridgestone/ Firestone in Bailey v. Ford Motor Co., a high profile personal injury suit in Texas involving a horrific rollover accident in a Ford Explorer that occurred when the tread on a Firestone tire blew apart. Using information he had gathered from discovery in nearly 50 lawsuits over the ten years that the Explorer had been in production, Turner also played a crucial role in bringing the

Photo of Tab Turner, attorney C. Tab Turner 
two companies to account for their reckless design decisions, which had ultimately led to the August 9, 2000, Ford/Firestone recall announcement of 6.5 million ATX, ATX II and Wilderness tires.

If not for Turner, the public would not know of Ford’s decision in 1989 to take the air out of the tires rather than correct design deficiencies that made Explorers prone to rollover. Nor would the public know that Ford’s decision to reduce the tire pressure below Firestone’s recommendations would cause the poorly designed tires to lose their tread and, in turn, cause the vehicle to roll. As part of the settlement, Turner forced Ford officials to publicly apologize to Bailey in her hospital room.

The other finalists for the 2001 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award were also honored at the gala for their contributions:

  • Michael J. Aguirre and Patricia A. Meyer of Aguirre & Meyer in San Diego, and Raymond P. Boucher of Kiesel Boucher & Larson in Beverly Hills, California,for winning restitution in Murray v. Belka for cheated pension-holders in the First Pension scandal .

  • San Francisco attorneys Angela M. Alioto of the Law Offices of Mayor Joseph L. Alioto & Angela Alioto and Paul B. Justi of the Law Offices of Paul B. Justi for their $133 million race discrimination verdict in Brown v. Interstate Brands Corp.

  • Robert E. Cartwright, Jr., of San Francisco’s Cartwright & Alexander for his success in forcing a recall of 3.7 million defectively designed radial saws in Dendy v. Sears, Roebuck & Co.

  • Judith Brown Chomsky, Jennifer Green, and Beth Stephens of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and Theresa Traber of Traber, Voorhees, & Olguin in Pasadena, California, for holding Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic liable in Doe v. Karadzic.

  • Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon of the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Maria Vullo of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York, for holding Karadzic liable for genocidal sexual atrocities in Kadic v. Karadzic.

  • Cyrus Mehri and Pamela Coukos of Mehri, Malkin & Ross in Washington, D.C., and H. Lamar Mixson, Jeffrey O. Bramlett, and Joshua Thorpe of Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore in Atlanta for their $192.5 million race discrimination class action settlement in Abdallah v. Coca-Cola Co.

  • Solo practitioner Richard G. Roth and J. Scott McLain of Reed, Carrera & McLain, both of Edinburg, Texas, for their $102 million toxic contamination verdict in Timely Adventures, Inc. v. Coastal Mart, Inc.

Other program highlights at The TLPJ Foundation’s 19th Anniversary Gala included the induction of Susan Vogel Saladoff of Ashland, Oregon, as the new TLPJ Foundation President.

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Trial Lawyers for Public Justice is the only national public interest law firm dedicated to using trial lawyers’ skills and resources to advance the public good. Founded in 1982, TLPJ utilizes a nationwide network of more than 2,700 trial lawyers to pursue precedent-setting and socially significant litigation. It has a wide-ranging litigation docket in the areas of civil rights and liberties, consumer rights, worker safety, toxic torts, environmental protection, and access to the courts. TLPJ is the principal project of The TLPJ Foundation, a not-for-profit membership organization. It has offices in Washington, DC, and Oakland, CA. The TLPJ web site address is www.tlpj.org.

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