The state of Florida said yesterday it had settled its massive Medicaid lawsuit against the US tobacco industry for $11.3 billion (£7.6 billion) and claimed a "historic victory over the nation's cigarette makers". "Florida's victory includes the largest monetary concessions the industry has ever paid and the toughest prohibitions ever imposed on advertising and marketing to children," said a statement from the office of the Governor of Florida, Mr Lawton Chiles.
Attorneys for Florida and tobacco firms confirmed the settlement amount.
"The $11.3 billion was announced by the governor during the dinner," Mr W. C. Gentry, an attorney for the state, said. Mr Chiles announced the settlement at a private dinner party on Sunday night.
The amount would be payable over 25 years.
Mr Chiles was expected to announce more details of the settlement in West Palm Beach, where jury selection in the trial already had begun.
Mr Peter Bleakley, an attorney for Philip Morris Cos Inc, said the settlement took the state out of the $368.5 billion national settlement between state attorneys general and the industry.
"The settlement puts Florida out of the national settlement," he said. "What Florida gains is $11.3 billion now, rather than having to wait three or four years to see what it gets."
Mr Bleakley said the state and tobacco companies had been negotiating for 30 days and Mr Chiles had made some concessions.
"The settlement is less than what the state had hoped to gain through the trial," he said. The state had told prospective jurors during jury selection that it intended to ask for $12.3 billion.
By making the settlement, "the state gave up treble damages and punitive damages, which automatically reduced the amount of money that Florida would have been entitled to if it had won the case," Mr Bleakley said.
Florida was seeking $12.3 billion to recover the cost of treating Medicaid recipients with smoking-related illnesses and punitive damages for the industry's alleged wrongful conduct in promoting a product it allegedly knew to be dangerous.
Mr Steven Goldstone, chairman of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp, said at the trial on Friday that he believed smoking contributes to lung cancer, according to a transcript.
His statement came a day after Mr Geoffrey Bible, the chief executive officer of Philip Morris Cos Inc, the largest tobacco company in the US, said in a deposition that 100,000 people a year may have died from smoking.
Mississippi announced in July a $3.36 billion settlement of the state's Medicaid lawsuit against big tobacco companies, averting the first trial of 40 such cases across the US.
Tobacco companies agreed in June to pay $368.5 billion, admit that tobacco is addictive and accept extensive federal regulation over their products.