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Strategies & Market Trends : Graham and Doddsville -- Value Investing In The New Era -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: porcupine --''''> who wrote (1237)	2/11/1999 12:20:00 AM
From: porcupine --''''>	Respond to of 1722

California Jury Deals A Blow to Big MO Calif. jury awards $50 million for smoker's cancer SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 10 (Reuters) - A California jury on Wednesday ordered Philip Morris Cos. <MO.N> to pay a former smoker with inoperable cancer $50 million in punitive damages, saying the maker of Marlboro cigarettes was to blame for the illness that will take her life. "I'm feeling numb. It was a great jury and it took a brave jury to make this decision," plaintiff Patricia Henley, 53, said after the San Francisco jury more than tripled the $15 million she had requested. Lawyers for the number one U.S. tobacco company immediately said they would appeal the decision, which legal analysts say could open the way for a raft of new lawsuits against tobacco companies by individual sick smokers. "It's obviously a verdict that is out of line with what almost every other jury has done with a case like this," attorney William Ohlemeyer told reporters. "These are very powerful emotional cases for people. Sometimes juries unfortunately let their emotions or feelings of sympathy get in the way of some of the facts they have to decide." The whopping punitive damage award followed the jury's decision on Tuesday to give Henley $1.5 million in compensatory damages for the pain, suffering and medical costs she has incurred since being diagnosed with fatal lung cancer and quitting smoking in 1997. A smoker since age 15 who smoked as many as three packs per day, Henley argued that she had become addicted to cigarettes long before tobacco companies began warning consumers about the health dangers of their products. "By the time she really had an understanding of what was going on it was many years down the line and she was addicted," Henley's lead attorney Madelyn Chaber said. Jury foreman George Loudis, a 47-year-old nonsmoker, said the jury was unanimous in feeling that Philip Morris should pay punitive damages, and that anger at the tobacco industry helped to drive the award so high. "This jury really as a whole was very angry at the cigarette companies," Loudis said. Industry analysts and legal experts have been closely watching Henley's case as an indicator of what might be in store for tobacco companies, who still face class action and individual suits despite reaching a $206 billion legal settlement with U.S. states last November. California shelved dozens of lawsuits by smokers in the 1980s, banning such cases on the grounds that the public knew the risks associated with smoking. But the state legislature repealed the ban in 1997, opening the door for Henley's case. News of Tuesday's $1.5 million compensatory award -- which also topped the $975,000 Henley had asked for -- sent Philip Morris stock tumbling some 11.5 percent on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. Stock analysts said more losses could be in the offing when the market opens on Thursday. Chaber said she was prepared for an appeal by the tobacco company and hoped that her client would see at least some of the award money before her death, which doctors say could come within the year. But she added that, no matter what happens, both she and her client were heartened and encouraged by the jury's decision. "We're thrilled with the award," Chaber said. "I think this is a message and a message that they weren't expecting."