Jury deliberating in Fla. tobacco trial
Court Alerts
A jury is deliberating a key phase in the first of 8,000 Florida lawsuits blaming health problems and deaths on tobacco companies.
The six-person Broward County jury must decide whether Stuart Hess was addicted to cigarette nicotine before he got lung cancer and died. If so, the jury would later decide any damages against the Philip Morris tobacco company.
The lawsuit by widow Elaine Hess is the first to go to trial since the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 threw out a $145 billion class-action jury award, ruling that each case had to be proven individually.
Hess' lawyers said Thursday he was hopelessly addicted to nicotine. The lawyer for Philip Morris said Hess chose not to quit despite known health risks.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.