Has the settlement dam finally broken in the so-called Engle progeny Florida tobacco litigation? Or will the big cigarette makers continue trying to plug their fingers in the dike?

That’s the multibillion-dollar question after a $100 million settlement with Lorillard Tobacco Company, Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which agreed Wednesday to resolve hundreds of smoker lawsuits in Florida federal court. (Philip Morris and RJR will each pay $42.5 million; Lorillard will pay $15 million.) As our Miami affiliate Daily Business Review reports, Wednesday’s deal isn’t just the first mass multidefendant settlement since the Florida Supreme Court decertified a humongous smoker class action nine years ago in Engle v. Liggett. It’s also the first major truce negotiated by the trio of defendants in nearly two decades of nationwide smoker litigation.

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