The Florida Supreme Court upheld a decision on 6 July 2006 that threw out a US$ 145 billion judgment against the nation's largest tobacco companies.

The court's judgment, which was widely expected to be in favour of the tobacco companies, reaffirms a lower court decision to void what was the largest punitive award by a jury in US history.
 It also removes a major roadblock for the Altria Group, the parent of Phillip Morris, as it tries to spin off its Kraft Foods division. The court rejected the jury award as "excessive as a matter of law" and concluded that the case was improperly filed as a class-action lawsuit. The majority opinion said that the facts of the case "are highly individualised and do not lend themselves to class-action treatment."
The case began in 1994 when it was filed as a nationwide class-action lawsuit. An appeals court later narrowed the class to include only Florida smokers – some 700,000 in all – and the case proceeded as a jury trial.
In 2000, the jury awarded a US$ 145 billion judgment after determining that the tobacco companies had lied to smokers about the dangers of cigarettes. Three years later, an appeals court overturned the award. The decision by the Florida Supreme Court revisited that appeals court decision.
The case involved the country's leading tobacco companies, including Phillip Morris, RJ Reynolds and Lorillard.