In its September 6, 2013 opinion, Walker v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that a Florida jury's prior findings in a class action against the major US cigarette makers bind the tobacco companies in subsequent litigation against individual plaintiffs.

In 1994, a group of smokers filed a putative class action in Florida state court (titled Engle v. Liggett Group, Inc.) against the major US cigarette makers. The trial court in Engle certified the class. After a year-long trial to consider the issues of liability and entitlement to punitive damages a whole, the jury found in the plaintiffs' favor. At the conclusion of this phase of the litigation, the jury made several findings of fact. For example, the jury found that the defendants' cigarettes were defective, caused certain diseases, and that the defendants concealed the adverse health effects and addictiveness of smoking cigarettes. On appeal, the Florida Supreme Court decertified the class but held that these and certain other findings by the Engle jury must be given res judicata effect in subsequent individual litigation by class members against the defendants.

After the Florida Supreme Court's Engle decision, thousands of members of the Engle class (including Walker and Duke, the plaintiffs-appellees in the instant appeal) filed individual cases in both state and federal courts. A central issue in these cases is whether plaintiffs may rely on the Engle jury's decision to establish certain elements of their claims against the tobacco companies. In these cases:

The district court in Walker and Duke instructed the juries that the Engle findings were conclusive on R.J. Reynolds. The only issues for those juries to resolve, therefore, were whether the plaintiffs were members of the Engle class, causation and damages. The jury ultimately awarded Walker $27,500. Duke was awarded a little over $7,600.

R.J. Reynolds argued on appeal that applying res judicata in later suits filed by individual smokers violates its constitutional right to due process of law because the Engle jury verdict is so ambiguous that it is impossible to tell whether the jury found that each tobacco company acted wrongfully with respect to any specific brand of cigarette or any individual plaintiff. The Eleventh Circuit rejected this argument, holding that R.J. Reynolds' due process rights were not violated because it had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the liability issues during the Engle trial. The Eleventh Circuit held that it could not refuse to give full faith and credit to the Florida Supreme Court's decision even though it disagreed with that court over the preclusive effect to be given to the Engle jury's findings.