Trop & Ameen legal team have won their fourth smoker verdict - a $21 million award on behalf of a 64-year-old Broward County woman.

The Broward Circuit Court verdict Thursday included $16.2 million in punitive damages and assigned 36 percent of the blame to plaintiff Ellen Tate, reducing the award from a total of $24 million. It is one of 22 cases to be tried across Florida since the Florida Supreme Court struck down a class action but gave individual smokers a right to sue with the benefit of the original Miami jury's anti-tobacco findings.

While the plaintiffs requested $51 million, "we're very happy with the verdict," said Paige of Paige Trop Ameen in Hollywood.

Paige, colleague Adam Trop and Alex Alvarez of the Alvarez Law Firm in Coral Gables represented Tate in the suit against Phillip Morris. Tate was a smoker since she was 13 and now has emphysema that requires her to be on oxygen 24 hours a day.

Phillip Morris was represented by Lucy Mason of Shook Hardy & Bacon's San Francisco office and John Phillips of the Phillips Law Group in Seattle. Mason did not return calls for comment by deadline. The tobacco company plans to appeal.