Smoker's compensation slashed from billions to millions
A Los Angeles judge has slashed a record-breaking $28bn (€27.3bn) award to a former smoker to $28m (€27.3m), saying the jury’s decision on punitive damages was excessive.
Superior Court Judge Warren Ettinger upheld the jury’s decision that cigarette maker Philip Morris was at least partially responsible for Betty Bullock’s cancer. However, he said $28m (€27.3m) was “a reasonable sum to be awarded against Philip Morris in these circumstances”.
The judge also denied the tobacco company’s request for a new trial on the merits of the case. Philip Morris said it would appeal.
“The court recognised that the jury’s punitive damage award was excessive, but failed to do what Philip Morris USA believed was required – reverse the entire verdict and order a new trial, William Ohlemeyer, Philip Morris vice president and associate general counsel, said in a statement.
In September, the jury ordered the tobacco company to pay Bullock $750,000 (€731,000) in economic damages and $100,000 (€97,000) for pain in suffering. Then in October the jury awarded her $28bn (€27.3bn) in punitive damages.
Philip Morris lawyer Peter Bleakely had argued the punitive damages were excessive and the jury used the award as a means of punishing the company. The award was higher than the combined amounts of punitive damages awarded in all the cases in California in the past two decades, he said.
Bullock, 64, of Newport Beach, started smoking when she was 17 and was diagnosed last year with lung cancer that has since spread to her liver.
During the nine-week trial her lawyer, Michael Piuze, told jurors that Philip Morris concealed the dangers of cigarettes with a widespread disinformation campaign that began in the 1950s. He used internal tobacco industry documents to lay out his contention.
Philip Morris did not try to defend its past actions. Instead, the company turned the spotlight on Bullock and her decision to smoke.
Before the Bullock case the largest jury award to an individual against a tobacco company was $3bn (€2.92bn), awarded in 2001 to Richard Boeken.
Boeken was a former heroin addict with cancer who died in January. The judgment against Philip Morris was later reduced to $100m (€97m) and is being appealed against.
While Philip Morris has not paid damages in a smoking-related lawsuit brought by an individual, the Bullock and the Boeken cases join a growing list of damage awards the company faces.
“Their appellate lawyers now have to be perfect in quite a few cases, and frankly seeing some of the developments at the trial level, we expect that most, if not all of these awards will withstand appellate review,” said Edward Sweda, senior lawyer with the Tobacco Products Liability Project, based at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston.
