Trial Lawyer News
Personal Injury Law News
April 2, 2009
Philip Morris Loses Appeal, Will Pay Millions in Settlement
The Supreme Court has denied Philip Morris' last chance to overturn a $79.5 million punitive damages award, resulting from a lawsuit brought in a smoker's death.
Mayola Williams, who brought the suit on behalf of her late husband Jesse Williams, was awarded nearly $80 million dollars by the jury nearly 2 weeks ago, and following the decision today she is now able to collect her share, which will be between $60 and $65 million. The original judgement against the tobacco giant was issued in 1999 and then went to the Supreme Court in 2003 and 2007. Consequently, the money has been collecting interest and now totals more than $155 million.
Robert Peck, Williams’ lawyer, said in an earlier interview that this decision signals a willingness to allow large awards in certain circumstances. “I think we can take from this long tale that if the behavior is sufficiently reprehensible, then larger awards are merited,” Peck said.
The case has bounced around appellate courts since shortly after Williams prevailed, on March 30, 1999, in the claims of fraud she pursued on behalf of her late husband, Jesse, a longtime smoker.
Jesse Williams 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.
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 original $79.5 million punitive damages verdict grew at a rate of 9 percent a year, because of interest authorized by Oregon law. Sixty percent of the total is supposed to go to an Oregon crime victims fund, although the company said Tuesday it plans 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 punitive damages, 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.
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