Tobacco giant fights £2.4bn cancer award
Tobacco giant Philip Morris is arguing that the £2.4bn judgement awarded to a longtime smoker with lung cancer should be reversed because the judge refused to allow evidence of his criminal history.
A Los Angeles jury last month awarded £2.1bn in punitive damages and £3.9m in compensatory damages to 56-year-old Richard Boeken.
The verdict was the largest ever in an individual lawsuit against a tobacco company.
Boeken, a former oil and securities dealer who smoked for 40 years, claimed he was the victim of an industry campaign that portrayed smoking as ‘‘cool,’’ but concealed its dangers.
During the trial, defence lawyers sought unsuccessfully to tell the jury about Boeken’s past run-ins with the law, including his involvement in the 1980s in a fraudulent oil and petrol scheme.
In its motion for a new trial, Philip Morris also takes aim at the size of the verdict, saying it shows jurors were motivated by ‘‘passion and prejudice’’ against the cigarette maker.
The judge scheduled an August 6 hearing on the motion and on an alternative request by the defence to reduce the damages to a maximum of £18m.
