Philip Morris ordered to pay $300 million to former smoker
Published: November 20, 2009
A South Florida jury yesterday ordered Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million to a former smoker, agreeing that the tobacco company's negligence was the cause of her emphysema.
The award in Broward County for Cindy Naugle, 61, is the largest to date among thousands of lawsuits filed in Florida against tobacco companies.
"Cindy admitted her fault to the jury," her attorney, Robert W. Kelley, said. "But Philip Morris refused to accept any responsibility for her emphysema, even though she was an addicted customer for 25 years."
The award amounts to $56 million in compensatory and $244 million in punitive damages against Henrico County-based Philip Morris USA, a unit of Altria Group Inc. The company said it will seek further review of the verdict.
"From the beginning, this case was marked by a fundamentally unfair and unconstitutional trial plan that allowed the jury to rely on findings by a prior jury that have no connection to the plaintiff," said Murray Garnick, senior vice president for Altria client services and associate general counsel, said in a statement.
The case is one of 8,000 lawsuits filed against tobacco companies by Florida smokers and their families.
The suits have been working their way through Florida courts since the state Supreme Court in 2006 voided a $145 billion class-action jury award against tobacco companies. The court said each smoker's case had to be decided individually, but let stand that jury's findings that tobacco companies knowingly sold dangerous products and hid risks from the public.
The city of Fort Lauderdale is in Broward County.
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Reader Reactions
Just THINK about it people…If someone cannot breathe in many lungfuls of smoke from a burning building and not have issues, why should a cigarette be any different? How is fire smoke different from cigarette smoke? It’s not—they’re both carcinogenic and eventually will cause irreparable harm. And yes, I *was* a smoker but quit years ago. And no, I am not blaming anyone but myself for ever starting.
Anon…how are my words any less credible because I am a smoker? If anything, they should be more credible. As a smoker, I am only blaming myself for the ciggarettes I have smoked. I can’t blame Phillip Morris. No one there handed me a pack and forced me to smoke. This is why I feel that this woman DOES not deserve any money.
Too bad we can’t sue juries for stupidity. If you suck hot smoke into your lungs, something bad is going to happen. The tobacco company didn’t light the cigarettes. It was the person’s choice to light up. Where is personal responsibility? What a travesty of the “justice” system.
I smoked for 27 years, so spare me the “did you smoke?“ nonsense. I loved every cigarette I ever smoked, but I’m smart enough to know that they’re not good for me. So I quit. I chose to smoke and I chose to quit. I didn’t blame anyone for the first choice and I accept all the positives for the second choice. Litigation and political correctness will be the ultimate demise of this great country.
Any day now, someone is going to sue the state for their alcohol addiction. I wonder who junkies can sue for their crack addiction?
This issue has been nothing more than a screen initially to suck money out of the tobacco companies for selling a legal product, then to enable individuals to do the same thing. A sham!
State govts, including Virginia, did not use the outrageous awards for the stated purpose of health care—the funds went into the general budget to spend on roads, etc. I was all a lie to legitimize suing companies producing a legal product, one of which purchasing was an individual choice.
I quit 25 years ago. Where is my money?
Tort reform: Here’s a textbook example of one of the reasons health care costs are skyrocketing. Substitute a doctor convicted of malpractice for Philip Morris. How can $244million of punitive damages be justified? The person already got $56million of compensatory damages which I am sure covered all her costs, both medical and legal, and then some. Doctors all over the country pay sky-high malpractice insurance premiums to guard against abuses of the judicial system like this. Guess who they are compelled to pass the cost on to? As it is, lawyers in tort cases are involved in a gigantic skam to rip off the entire country and it’s all ‘legal’ because politicians won’t do anyting to stop it.
123456,
Did you try to quit yourself? How many times? How successful were you each time? Because you label yourself as a smoker, I take it you were unable to follow the advice you so cavalierly offer this plaintiff.
Your words would carry more weight if you had described yourself as a former smoker.
I wish I could sue PM for keeping me smoking for almost 30 years. They can pay me $100,000 for each year for the pain and suffering I endured including all of the headaches, the nausea, the bad skin, the yellow teeth, the yellow nails, the awful smell. How about PM reimburse all of my prior employers for all of the time that I spent outside smoking cigarettes instead of being inside doing the work they were paying me to do.
The best thing I ever did in my whole life was to stop that vicious cycle of needing the drug—nicotine—to get me through the next 20 minutes of every day. If anyone out there is thinking they can’t stop, I would highly recommend that you talk to your doctor and see if you can try taking “Chantix”. It will take away the “I gotta have it” but it doesn’t do anything about the “I wanna do it”. You’ve got to work on that part yourself.
My advice—QUIT! Quit now while you can. Don’t wait until it’s too late.
What a total travesty of justice. Next beer, wine and other spirits; then fast food; and finally soft drinks and other cavity-causing sweets. Our country is without any personal accountability whatsoever.
This is a typical Florida jury. This should be thrown out! Broward is a very currupt 3rd world county. They brought us COPS with Nic Navaro, but not much else. This should be challanged to the highest degree. What a joke.
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