Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
"It's not going to bring my wife back,'' the New Port Richey resident said of the $4.02-million.
By TAMARA LUSH
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 9, 2000
Alone in a Miami hotel room, Ralph Della Vecchia still cries for his wife, Angie.
The New Port Richey woman died last year at 53, after cancer spread from her lungs to other organs and, finally, to her brain. A 40-year cigarette habit caused that cancer, Ralph Della Vecchia maintained, and on Friday a jury agreed.
Jurors ordered the tobacco industry to pay Angie Della Vecchia's estate $4.02-million in a landmark case against tobacco companies.
Speaking to the Times from Miami on Saturday, Della Vecchia said he doesn't expect to see that money any time soon.
"When it's in my hands, I'll feel more comfortable," he said. "I just hope my kids see it."
Mrs. Della Vecchia was one of three plaintiffs in the lawsuit to represent an estimated 500,000 sick Floridians.
One smoker received $2.85-million, while the third was awarded $5.8-million in the case -- but the jury decided he couldn't collect because the four-year statute of limitations had run out. The judge said he would decide later how to handle that award.
The verdict represents only compensatory damages, which cover medical expenses, pain and suffering. The jury will soon consider punitive damages, which are meant to punish.
Della Vecchia declined to talk much about the next phase of the trial, to ensure he didn't in any way affect the outcome.
Still, he believes that the jury "is going to give the 500,000 Floridians a big punitive damage award.
"The jury found (the tobacco companies) guilty in two phases of the trial; why wouldn't they be found guilty in the third phase?"
The same jury that ruled Friday decided last July that five cigarette companies and two industry groups conspired to produce an addictive, dangerous product that causes dozens of illnesses.
Della Vecchia, who was married to his wife for 30 years, has spent the last five months in Miami, attending hearings and the trial. He came home to New Port Richey only on weekends to see his family.
"Every time I heard my wife's name in court, I cried," he said. When the verdict was read in court on Friday, Della Vecchia said he wept again.
In February, he testified that his wife was addicted to cigarettes. Mrs. Della Vecchia started smoking when she was 11 and eventually smoked two packs a day, Della Vecchia said.
In 1997, after a lung X-ray showed a spot of cancer, she stopped smoking, he said. She quit to qualify for surgery but resumed smoking within three months after her tumor was removed. The cancer eventually spread to her brain, and she endured months of seizures. She died in July, three weeks after the jury ruled that tobacco companies conspired to make a dangerous product.
Della Vecchia said his wife would be happy with Friday's verdict -- but the ruling doesn't take away his grief.
"It's not going to bring my wife back," he said. "All the money in the world wouldn't do that. I just miss her dearly."
-- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.