Jury awards ex-smoker $28 billion in damages
When I first heard this story, my sense of disbelief was palpable. I still find it difficult to believe that a jury would go this far, even to punish a tobacco company for selling a deadly, addictive product.
LOS ANGELES -- A jury awarded a record-shattering $28 billion in punitive damages today to a 64-year-old former smoker who sued Philip Morris Inc. for fraud and negligence.
The Superior Court jury awarded the amount to Betty Bullock, who started smoking when she was 17 and was diagnosed last year with lung cancer that has since spread to her liver.
Last month, the jury ordered the tobacco company to pay Bullock $750,000 in damages and $100,000 for pain and suffering.
Philip Morris said it would appeal.
"This jury should have focused on what the plaintiff knew about the health risks of smoking, and whether anything the company ever said or did improperly influenced her decision to smoke or not to quit," said William Ohlemeyer, the company's associate general counsel.
"Testimony during the trial showed that Ms. Bullock was aware of the health risks of smoking and was warned repeatedly of those risks by her doctors over four decades, and her daughter also urged her to quit. Her response: 'I am an adult, this is my business.'"
Before today, the biggest verdict won by an individual against a tobacco company was $3 billion, awarded in June 2001. Philip Morris was ordered to pay the amount to Richard Boeken, a former heroin addict with cancer who died in January. The verdict was later reduced by a judge to $100 million.
During Bullock's trial, Philip Morris did not try to defend its past actions. Instead, the company turned the spotlight on Bullock and her decision to smoke. The strategy was a major shift from previous defense efforts.
Bullock's lawyer, Michael Piuze, argued that Philip Morris concealed the dangers of cigarettes with a widespread disinformation campaign that began in the 1950s. He told jurors it was "the largest fraud scheme ever perpetrated by corporations anywhere."
Piuze used photographs of Bullock, cigarette ads from her teenage years and internal tobacco industry documents to lay out his contention that Philip Morris concealed the dangers of cigarettes.
The company denied any campaign to fool smokers.
I would be the last person on this planet to defend a tobacco company. If there is anyone on Earth more virulently anti-smoking than I am, I'd certainly like to meet that person. Nevertheless, this verdict disturbs me greatly. While I am all for punishing tobacco companies, I find it difficult to believe that a 64-year-old woman bears no responsibility for smoking for 47 years. This woman is an adult, and as such presumably capable of making decisions for herself. Hold the tobacco companies liable for manufacturing and selling a product that kills, certainly, but where it the plaintiff's responsibility in this?
Tobacco companies sell a product that is deadly and addictive. Their marketing has historically been deceptive and misleading. Yes, they need to be held responsible, and were it within my power to do so, shut down. Even so, $28 billion dollars is a ridculous amount of money. An award of that magnitude is just begging for an appeal, which will surely happen. Any judge with a sense of proportion will reduce the award severely, but I think the damage has likely already been done.
Somehow, the system must find a way to keep punitive damage awards from leaving the realm of the sublime for that of the ridiculous. If meaningful reform is to come about, there needs to be at the very least a sense of perspective about damages and awards. Yes, the plaintiff no doubt has suffered greatly. Even so, no one held a gun to her head for 47 years and forced her to smoke the defendant's product. At what point do juries begin to hold individual adults responsible for the consequences of their decisions and actions (or lack of same)? I think that point has come. It's time for some common sense to be reintroduced back into the tort system.
$28 billion is not a punitive damage award. It's a parody and mockery of tort law, and it can only serve the purpose of those who would defend tobacco companies. Let's find something that works and can be effective without turning the legal system into a parody of itself.
