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From Yahoo Finance News: Monday March 27, 6:55 pm Eastern Time UPDATE 3-Cal. jury gives $20 million to ex-smoker (Adds family statement, quotes from lawyer) By Michael Kahn SAN FRANCISCO, March 27 (Reuters) - A California jury on Monday ordered two major tobacco companies to pay a dying ex-smoker $20 million in punitive damages -- the first such award to someone who started smoking after health warnings appeared on cigarette packs in 1969. In a fresh legal setback for the embattled tobacco industry, the 12-member San Francisco Superior Court panel ordered Philip Morris Cos Inc.(NYSE:MO - news) and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. (NYSE:RJR - news) each to pay $10 million to Leslie Whiteley, a California woman who developed lung cancer after smoking for 25 years. The same jury decided last week that the two companies should pay Whiteley, a 40-year-old mother of four, $1.7 million in compensatory damages. That decision found that the cigarette makers acted with malice, knew about the hazards of smoking and deliberately misled the public about those dangers even after they began complying with the surgeon general's order to place health warnings on cigarette labels. ``I think they (the tobacco companies) did not think they could lose a post-warning case,' said Whiteley's lawyer, Madelyn Chaber, after the decision. She predicted that more ex-smokers would sue big tobacco. ``I think it will encourage people that it can be done, that they can take on the tobacco industry,' she said. The decision was the first time cigarette makers were held responsible for the health of people who began smoking after the surgeon general publicly announced the dangers of smoking in 1965 and health warnings appeared on cigarette packages in 1969 -- demolishing a key tobacco industry defense against court action by former smokers. Whiteley, of Ojai, Calif., says she began smoking in 1972 at the age of 13, and continued until her cancer diagnosis in 1998. Chaber said that during the course of the trial, Whiteley learned the cancer had spread to her liver and to her brain and that she was not expected to live out the year. ``The Whiteley family wishes to thank the jury, judge and our legal team for their time, energy and careful decisions so that justice can be carried out and the truth be known,' the family said in a statement issued through their attorneys. Philip Morris spokesman John Sorrells said the tobacco industry remained convinced that the warnings should protect it from awards like that given to Whiteley. ``We still don't believe that someone who starts smoking after the warnings went on the cartons should be entitled to damages,' Sorrells said. ``The verdict was not supported by the evidence and we are confident that it will be overturned,' Daniel W. Donahue, senior vice president and deputy general counsel for Reynolds Tobacco said in a statement. The jury's verdict last week, which also found that the two companies committed fraud, set the stage for Monday's punitive damage award -- sums which in prior sick smoker cases have gone as high as $81 million. After less than two full days of deliberation, the jurors returned a total punitive damage award of $20 million, significantly less than the $115 million that Chaber had requested but at least four times the amount that tobacco industry lawyers had asked for. Legal experts said the panel's rejection of the higher amount may have been influenced by the industry's argument that it had already gotten the message from similar lawsuits and had demonstrated goodwill on the issue through the $206 billion settlement reached in 1998 between 46 states and the major tobacco companies. Jury foreman Michael Criscola said the final vote on the level of damages had gone 9-3, with the holdouts wanting a much bigger sum. But he said that the panel was united in finding the tobacco companies should pay a price for their behavior. ``Most damning was the fact they had known about this for 50 years and didn't do anything about it,' he said. The case marked another milestone in the legal battle over tobacco, and industry analysts said it could pave the way for similar cases in future. ``This will come as a serious blow to the tobacco industry,' said Martin Feldman, a tobacco analyst from Salomon Smith Barney. He added it suggests ``the industry has made precious little progress in improving its litigation strategy.' The jurors also apparently discounted tobacco industry arguments that Whiteley's prior use of marijuana had been an important factor leading to her cancer diagnosis. The Whiteley case is the first California case involving an individual smoker to go to trial since a San Francisco jury last year awarded $51 million to Patricia Henley, a smoker who sued Philip Morris after developing lung cancer. The judge later cut that award to $26 million, and the case is now on appeal. Shortly after the Henley verdict, an Oregon jury awarded $81 million to the family of a smoker of Philip Morris' Marlboro cigarettes, an award which was later cut to $32 million. Just one question: How do I get on this gravy train? (Smokers, please preface your initial response to the thread with how many packs a day and # of years of smoking) Let it go where it goes. | ||||||||||||
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