Jury Fines Philip Morris $150M

A jury in Portland, Oregon, Friday ordered tobacco giant Philip Morris to pay $150 million to the estate of a woman who died of lung cancer after smoking Merit low-tar cigarettes, court officials said.

Michelle Schwarz, who began smoking in 1964 and switched to low-tar Merit cigarettes in 1976, died in 1999 at age 53. Her estate sued Philip Morris, the world's largest tobacco company, for $305 million in state court.

The Multnomah County Court jury found that Philip Morris had falsely represented that low-tar cigarettes are healthier than regular ones.

The jury also awarded Schwarz' estate $168,000 in compensatory damages.

Schwarz had switched from a regular filtered cigarette because she believed the low-tar version would be better for her health, said the attorney for her estate, Lawrence Wobbrock.

Wobbrock contended in court that Philip Morris marketed the cigarettes as having fewer health risks.

But James L. Dumas, one of the company's attorneys, said Philip Morris did not market Merits as healthier than regular filtered cigarettes. He said the company advertises them as milder, or feeling less harsh.

Wobbrock said smokers were getting the same amount of tar by taking more puffs on their cigarettes and smoking them closer to the butt.

But Dumas said it was not the company's fault that smokers figured out how to get around the low-tar design.

Philip Morris attorneys maintained that Schwarz, who went to nursing school and married a physician, was aware of the risks of smoking and chose to continue despite warning labels.

The jury had deliberated for four days.

Anti-tobacco groups hailed the verdict as a big victory for their cause.

The decision could become a significant factor in class-action lawsuits pending in several other states where low-tar cigarettes are at issue, said Edward L. Sweda, attorney with the Tobacco Products Liability Project in Boston.

"It proves such a case is winnable in a big way," said Sweda.

Philip Morris said it would appeal and predicted it would be ultimately victorious.

"The current verdict will be reversed on appeal on a number of grounds," said John Philips, an attorney for the tobacco giant.

Philips contended the jurors were given "erroneous instructions" by the judge, but would not elaborate. He also the plaintiffs should not have been allowed to highlight portions of documents that were presented to the jury on an overhead projector.

Philips said it amounted to "a guided tour through the documents."

Martin Feldman, a tobacco analyst with Salomon Smith Barney in New York City, said the size of the award "indicates the tobacco industry still has significant work to do if it is ever to convince West Coast jurors of its defenses."

Although tobacco companies win most cigarette suits, they have recently fared poorly in the courts on the West Coast, losing three large verdicts in California in the past three years.

The Schwarz trial came three years after a Multnomah County jury ordered Philip Morris to pay $80.5 million to the family of Jesse Williams, who died of lung cancer in 1997 after smoking Marlboros for 40 years.

It was a record verdict at the time, even after the judge reduced the punitive damages to $32 million. That verdict is currently in the Oregon Court of Appeals, said Chuck Tauman, an attorney who handled both cases.