Last week, a Florida jury told a group of tobacco companies that they had to pay more than $145 billion to sick smokers. As a champion of the underdog, I got a kick out of this. As a guy who like beer, well, I was a bit concerned.

Here we have a legal product that people were using in the appropriate way. I don't think you should be able to sue for that. I don't want to start seeing people with liver disease suing my favorite beer companies.

But that won't happen. Because unlike the tobacco companies, brewers acknowledge that excessive (though still legal) use of their product can cause health problems. They didn't create the Brewers' Institute to issue false "scientific" papers that refuted genuine health concerns and even common sense.

The tobacco companies did that. And in video that has been shown in countless news programs, documentaries and the movie The Insider, the presidents of the companies lined up together in front of a Congressional committee and lied their asses off.

That one picture or video sequence is the smoking gun in any case against tobacco companies. These guys were so arrogant that they said they believed that cigarettes were not addictive and did not cause health problems. We should believe them instead of a phalanx of scientific reports simply because the tobacco companies know best.

For years and years, tobacco lawyers have kept class-action cases like the Florida one out of the courtroom. None ever came to trial. Up until a couple of years ago, the tobacco companies never lost a case, at least once things were finally resolved on appeal.

But that's changing. And that picture of the presidents raising their right hands while they're being sworn in hangs over this and all the other cases to come. Even smokers I know have contempt for the purveyors of their addiction. My friends know they're hooked, they know their "habit" might kill them, and they continue to smoke. Most don't blame the companies, but they are among the most caustic commentators on the shenanigans.

I live in Durham, N.C., where the American cigarette industry was brought to fruition (it actually started in New York, but Washington Duke bought the patent to the first successful cigarette roller and built his machines in and around Durham). In fact, things were hopping so much down here that the Justice Department filed an anti-trust suit against Duke's American Tobacco. The resulting break-up made Duke and his family billions (in the long run).

Today, only Liggett & Myers remains, though it will soon move its operations to Mebane, N.C., about 20 miles to the west. The old Lucky Strike factory is in the process of being renovated as an upscale mall, office and apartment center, just like most of the other tobacco buildings which ring Durham's downtown. The death of big tobacco is bringing a more diversified economy to the area, and everyone seems to like that.

I do too. Lawsuits will come and go, even $145 billion lawsuits. But change is constant. People in the U.S. are smoking less, and tobacco operations in this country and getting smaller and smaller. This event probably marks little than the surge of public opinion against the actions (if not the products) of the tobacco industry. It is lot of money in the headlines, even if that preposterous figure won't stand up to appeal.

Still, it's nice to see the little guys beat the arrogant bastards. Doesn't happen nearly enough.

Jon Worley picked Gonzaga to win each of the last two NCAA tournaments. Rooting for the little guy does not lead to a fortune in the office pool.