An appeals court has ruled that in a case where a plaintiff already has won a million dollar judgment in a lawsuit against tobacco companies, his family cannot go back and sue for more after his death.

Michael Thompson, who began smoking cigarettes sometime before 1969 while he was still a minor, continued until 1997, when he was diagnosed with lung cancer, according to Wednesday’s ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis in Christi Thompson et al. v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, et. al.

After his diagnosis, he and his wife brought a personal injury action against those who manufactured, distributed and sold tobacco in state court in Missouri. A jury found the manufacturers liable for product defect and negligence, and awarded the Thompsons a $1 million judgment, which was upheld by a state appeals court in 2006, according to the ruling.

Mr. Thompson died in 2009, and his wife and their children filed suit against the same defendants in state court in August 2012. The litigation was subsequently moved to federal District Court in Kansas City, Missouri, which held that the wrongful death claims against the tobacco companies were barred by the earlier personal injury judgment.

Two judges on the 8th Circuit agreed in their ruling. Missouri’s “‘one recovery rule’ prohibits wrongful death claims … if the decedent has received satisfaction for the same wrongful conduct — whether by adjudication or by settlement — during his or her lifetime,” said the ruling.

The ruling said the court disagreed with the Thompson family that the statute “creates a wholly distinct and independent cause of action in the decedent’s survivors.”

“As a result of the 2003 judgment in his personal injury suit, Mr. Thompson no longer had a viable claim against the cigarette manufacturers at the time of his death, and his family is barred from bringing such a claim now,” said the appellate court, in dismissing the case.

The ruling was issued by only two judges because a third judge in the case who heard the oral argument subsequently recused herself from the case, according to the ruling, which did not offer any further explanation.