( April 8, 2024, 11:18 AM EDT) -- MIAMI — A Florida appellate panel on April 5 denied two tobacco companies’ motion for rehearing of their challenge to a jury’s $2.5 million compensatory damages verdict against them in favor of the estate of a smoker who died in 1993 from lung cancer, which the panel affirmed after rejecting arguments that the smoker was actually a New Yorker and that the jury heard improper, inflammatory testimony....