This is just the latest of several huge payouts awarded to smokers by US courts.
Legal costs are enormous.
Yet any attempts in English courts to get such compensation have failed - and Scottish smokers are also still waiting for a successful case. The only case yet brought before English courts was begun in 1992. The court action was taken by 52 lung cancer sufferers against two tobacco companies, Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco. But seven years into the case a judge ruled that 36 of the 52 had been diagnosed with the disease more than three years before suing. He ruled that under English law this was too late to go to court, and the case collapsed.