Big Tobacco Court Appeal Up In Smoke

Supreme Court Dismisses Philip Morris' Appeal Of $79.5 Million Award To Smoker's Widow

(CBS/AP)  The Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a cigarette maker's appeal of a $79.5 million award to a smoker's widow, likely signaling the end of a 10-year legal fight over the large payout.

In a one-sentence order, the court left in place a ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court in favor of Mayola Williams. The state court has repeatedly upheld a verdict against Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA in a fraud trial in 1999.

The judgment has grown to more than $145 million with interest.

The justices heard arguments in the case in December, but said Tuesday that they are not passing judgment on the legal issues that were presented. Instead, it is as if the court had declined to hear the case at all.

"It's a bit unusual for the justices to hear argument in a case and then decide that they don't want to rule on the merits of it. But that's what's happened here," said CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen.

Philip Morris had argued that the award should be thrown out and a new trial ordered because of flaws in the instructions given jurors before their deliberations.

Business interests had once hoped the high court would use the case to set firm limits on the award of punitive damages, intended to punish a defendant for its behavior and deter a repeat offense.

But the dismissal still leaves no firm precedent for future cases.

"The dismissal of the appeal is good news for the plaintiff, obviously. She's been fighting the tobacco company for a decade for this money. But the lack of an actual ruling from the justices doesn't offer much guidance or clarity to other litigants involved in these cases," said Cohen.

The case has bounced around appellate courts since 1999, when Williams convinced a jury that Philip Morris should be held accountable for misleading people into thinking cigarettes were not dangerous or addictive.

Williams' husband Jesse was a janitor in Portland who started smoking during a 1950s Army hitch and died in 1997, six months after he was diagnosed with lung cancer.

Williams, according to his widow, never gave any credence to the surgeon general's health warnings about smoking cigarettes because tobacco companies insisted they were safe. Only after falling sick did Williams tell his wife: "Those darn cigarette people finally did it. They were lying all the time."

His widow was awarded $800,000 in actual damages. The punitive damages are about 97 times greater. A state court previously cut the compensatory award to $521,000.

The value of the award has climbed to more than $145 million because of accrued interest, the company said. Sixty percent of it would go to an Oregon crime victims fund, although the company has said it might continue to contest the portion owed the state.

The Oregon high court made its first decision in 2002, refusing to hear an appeal from Philip Morris.

Then the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the judgment of nearly $80 million, saying in another case that damages generally should be held to no more than nine times actual economic damages. It declined, however, to make that a firm rule.

Next, the Oregon Supreme Court upheld the punitive damages, citing "extraordinarily reprehensible" conduct by Philip Morris officials.

Then came the U.S. Supreme Court's second take on the case. In 2007, the court said in a 5-4 decision that jurors may punish a defendant only for harm done to someone who is suing, not other smokers who could make similar claims.

The state court was told to reconsider the award in the context of instructions for the trial jury that Philip Morris proposed and the trial judge rejected.

In January, the Oregon court said there were other defects in the instructions that violated Oregon law, and supported the trial judge's decision not to give the proposed instructions to the jury.

The case is Philip Morris USA v. Williams, 07-1216.

[thetireguy1]

I wonder how many people this clown smoked in front of demanding his right to smoke
and then dies and the poor widow wants to be compensated for his death!
When people first tried to smoke(they cough from the smoke) its not natural
I mean you don't see people standing by a fire inhaling smoke do you! Wheres
the common sense in all of this!
My mother-in-law died from smoking and as she said the cigarettes(nicotine) makes her
feel good! Why shouldn't the people around her be compensated for having to breathe her
second hand smoke! The common sense folks would tell you to go to another room!
I say if you smoke and get addicted get help! Its not the lottery!
Suing the tobacco companies for giveng smokers pleasure(nicotine) is like someone
who reads(looks) at Playboy and takes up jerking off 5 x a day suing playboy because they
got testicle cancer!!! The worlds going lawsuit crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! please light up!!!!!and sue

[honestabe8]

Much like a drug trafficker does.

Posted by vielmann

what's the difference between the tobacco pushers and the "drug" trafficker, other than the legality of their product?

[honestabe8]

To honestabe8, Son, you make that call. I don't claim to be the smartest in the world but I'm not dumb enough to screw my mind up, I get too much of a high out of just living to go looking LalaLand.
Posted by hankvreeland

hank: i don't know that it is screwing my mind up any more than alcohol. i am looking at it as a poor public policy, that i feel should be discarded. anyway, thanks for the (semi) ad-hom free commentg. have a great day

[budmag06]

Let's see... It was "Big Banking", "Big Wall Street", "Big Automakers", "Big Business", "Big Oil", etc.. Now, "Big Tobacco"? All designed to destroy business and to change public sentiment of the weak minded against anyone having success. Next, "Big Government" will have to take over. Communism 101

[tmittelstaed]

This has nothing to do with whether a person is dumb for smoking or not. I live in OR and know all about this case. Basically, the State of OR is drowning in medical bills run up by indigent people going in to the emergency room, or people who's medical insurance has run out, or whatever. They get on the Oregon Health Plan when their own insurance runs out or on Medicare (like this guy was) because we, the citizens in OR, are not so uncivilized as to toss sick people into a ditch to let them die just because they run out of money.
Anyway, the State knows that in the long run that medical conditions as a result of smoking are going to cost the taxpayers a huge amount of money. So we want the tobacco companies to take their cancer sticks and exit the state. We are going to make it so expensive for them to sell cigs here that either they are going to stop doing it, or they are going to jack the price up so high that all our addicted residents won't be able to afford the coffin nails anymore and will stop smoking.
If every smoker carried a 10 million dollar health insurance policy to cover them in the even they end up with lung cancer, we would have no problems, and our jury would have never ruled in this guys's widows favor. But smokers want to have their coffin nails and smoke them too - they expect the state to come running in and cover them with medicare payments and oregon health plan payments when they get seriously ill and exhaust their own resources. Well party's over, folks.

[hankvreeland]

Hey vielmann, I disagree thats the way it should be. A man should be responsible for his own decisions or he is an infant not a man is how it should be. Screw up. Pay the price. I've been there, done that and I've got the Tshirt.

[hankvreeland]

To honestabe8, Son, you make that call. I don't claim to be the smartest in the world but I'm not dumb enough to screw my mind up, I get too much of a high out of just living to go looking LalaLand.

[anglosaxongal]

Hmmm....my dad was in that war. Isn't it convenient it was then that the U.S. military started experiementing on soldiers with their various chemicals and biologic germs? I'd bet my last peanut butter paste that THAT experimentation that did the man in! Another perfect cover-up for all the cruds to profit from. Disgusting.

[vetsence]

Wow, by the sounds of it here, I would say that most of you have very little respect for your own bodies, much less the bodies of others. Tell you what, I'll start a company that produces poisen and we will contract with the canned food industry to put some of it in each can, so that we can slowly poisen you to death. Since I am a company "god" therefore it must be alright. Sick!!!!!

[honestabe8]

kenodenis: i agree. why stop there? why not bring ronald mcdonald and the hamburgler into court. why not bring in sony? heck, their tv is soooo good, i sit on my arse in front of it.

[honestabe8]

wtc: it's a pretty big risk getting yourself sick in the hopes of becoming the one in a million beneficiary of a tobacco lawsuit

[wtcmedic911]

wow, i should have started being a smoker, ignoring the surg. general warning. could leave the wife and child a really great death benefit!

[kenodenis]

I have no pity for this woman who has had this lawsuit going for ten plus years. I am a smoker and it's down to this - Smoker Beware. I would never sue the maker of the cigarette I chose to smoke. I would rather sue myself for my own stupidity as I huff and puff up the stairs of my house.

I think the tobacco industry has been hit hard for the product they sell. When will the makers of booze get dragged into court for ten year battles?

None of this makes sense. You want to have a vice? Then be prepared for the physical consequences and at the end of the day - blame only yourself for your failed health.

[brianbwb-2009]

For those who are opposed to the size of the payout, consider this. If there are limits placed on liability, companies will then calculate "acceptable deaths" based on such limits. Then in the future should you, your child, or other loved one die from the actions of a company, know that they have already factored that death in the price of the product, and found you and your loved one's lives not worth fixing the defect, or altering their practice.

When that happens, don't start screaming for the opposite of that about which you now whine.

[UR_Majesty]

Does anyone agree with giving 145 million to a dead fools family . The guy smoked himself to dead. I would not give them $1.00.

[honestabe8]

hankvreeland: is the possible health effect of impotency after prolonged use reason to make this a criminal matter?

[summarex]

They should refuse to pay it and demand protection from their home state.

[UR_Majesty]

This is wrong. The man smoked on his own free will.

[ceb969]

He did not read the warning label? Once the warning lable was put on a tobacco package that people could not sue the tobacco company? Also why so much money, she lives in Oregon I bet she makes about 25,000 a year. If she should get any thing it should be no more than a million.

[hankvreeland]

Hey legacyabq
I guess you smoke because you don't really want to stop. I smoked for forty years and stopped because it was affecting my running. That was before warning labels. Pot? Haven't read anything about cancer but there have been a couple of papers about prolonged use leading to impotency.