## Facts

- Two wrongful-death actions were brought in federal court by personal representatives of Florida smokers’ estates against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR), a cigarette manufacturer and successor to other tobacco companies.
- The claims were filed as “Engle progeny” suits following a prior Florida statewide tobacco class action that produced Phase I jury findings on common issues concerning defendants’ conduct and the health effects of smoking.
- The Florida Supreme Court decertified the class for individualized issues but preserved specified Phase I “common liability findings” for issue-preclusive use in later individual suits by class members filed within a defined period.
- In the federal trials, the district court applied the preserved Phase I findings as issue-preclusive and instructed the juries that certain propositions had already been established, including that RJR’s cigarettes were defective and unreasonably dangerous, RJR was negligent, and cigarette smoking causes certain diseases.
- The juries returned verdicts for the plaintiffs and awarded damages.
- RJR appealed, arguing that applying issue preclusion based on the Phase I findings violated federal due process because the findings were allegedly too general to establish elements of the plaintiffs’ specific claims.

## Issues

1. Whether 28 U.S.C. § 1738 required a federal court to give the same preclusive effect to the Florida class-action judgment that Florida courts would give it.
2. Whether applying issue preclusion based on the preserved Phase I findings in later individual suits violated RJR’s federal due process rights.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the judgments for the plaintiffs.
- The court held that § 1738 required federal courts to apply Florida’s rules on the preclusive effect of the Florida judgment, as defined by Florida’s highest court.
- The court held that Florida law gives the preserved Phase I findings issue-preclusive effect in subsequent individual actions by qualifying class members.
- The court rejected RJR’s due process challenge, concluding that preclusion was not arbitrary or fundamentally unfair because RJR had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the common issues in the earlier class action and to seek appellate review.

## Legal Principles

- Under 28 U.S.C. § 1738, federal courts must give state-court judgments the same preclusive effect they would receive in the courts of the rendering state.
- The preclusive effect of a state-court judgment in federal court is determined by the rendering state’s preclusion law, including authoritative interpretations by the state’s highest court.
- Issue preclusion satisfies federal due process when the party against whom it is asserted had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issues in the earlier proceeding and the application of preclusion is not arbitrary or fundamentally unfair.
- Due process does not require perfect element-by-element correspondence between an earlier verdict form and later claims, so long as the issues actually decided are sufficiently clear for preclusion and remaining individualized elements (e.g., class membership and specific causation) remain for the later plaintiff to prove.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit upheld the use of preserved Phase I class-action findings as issue-preclusive in later federal wrongful-death suits by qualifying class members, holding that federal full-faith-and-credit principles required deference to Florida’s preclusion rules and that applying those rules did not violate the tobacco company’s due process rights.


Walker v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 734 F.3d 1278 (11th Cir. 2013)