FORT LAUDERDALE (AP) – The first of about 8,000 lawsuits blaming the health problems and deaths of Florida smokers on tobacco companies went to trial Tuesday, more than two years after the state Supreme Court threw out a record $145 billion class-action verdict.

The high court in 2006 rejected the punitive damages awarded by a jury as excessive, but left in place the case’s conclusions that tobacco companies knowingly sold dangerous products and concealed the health risks of smoking for years. But the court also ruled that smokers or their survivors must prove their cases individually.

Elaine Hess, widow of 40-year smoker Stuart Hess, is the first of those plaintiffs to go to trial. Because of the previous findings on industry liability, the key to the case is proving whether her husband was addicted to cigarettes made by Richmond, Va.-based Philip Morris, a unit of Altria Group.