US Jury Awards $13.8m To Smoker's Daughter

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Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Also Included In: Lung Cancer
Article Date: 25 Aug 2009 - 10:00 PDT

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A US jury has awarded a tobacco company to pay $13.8 million to Jodie Bullock, the daughter of a woman who died of lung cancer at the age of 64 and who had been a smoker for 47 years. The jury panel voted 9 to 3 in favour of the award, reported the Associated Press.

At least one of the three jurors who voted against the award wanted the company to pay more, while others said the 13.8 million was a compromise figure.

The case first came to court 8 years ago, in April 2001, when Jodie's mother Betty, of Newport Beach, California, sued tobacco giant Philip Morris on the grounds of fraud and product liability. Betty died in February 2003 and Jodie then became the plaintiff.

In 2002 a jury said Philip Morris should pay $28 billion in punitive damages, $750,000 in damages and $100,000 for pain and suffering. A judge later reduced the punitive damages to $28 million, which Philip Morris said was excessive.

In 2008 the 2nd District Court of Appeal overturned the jury's decision on the punitive damages and sent the case for retrial. The verdict on the other two amounts totalling $850,000 still stands, however.

Bullock's attorney said the jury's new award amounted to a "slap on the wrist" for Philip Morris.

"I liked it better when it was $28 billion", said Michael Piuze.

Frank P Kelly, one of the attorneys defending Philip Morris said they had not decided yet whether to appeal.

Philip Morris is part of the Virginia-based tobacco group Altria who said in a statement that the facts of the case did not support any punitive damages and that the award was excessive.

Altria Client Services senior vice president, Murray Garnick, said that after weeks of hearing the evidence:

"The jury still managed to reject plaintiff's patently unreasonable request."

Betty started smoking Marlboros when she was 17 and then switched to Benson & Hedges. Both brands are from Philip Morris.

Lawyers defending Philip Morris argued that Bullock could have quit smoking at any time, and that smokers knew about the harmful effects of cigarettes.

Philip Morris is one of the seven tobacco companies who agreed to change the way tobacco products are marketed in the US and pay states an estimated total of $206 billion as part of the Master Settlement Agreement.

The tobacco companies also agreed to fund a $1.5 billion anti-smoking campaign, open industry documents that had previously been kept secret, and disband industry trade groups, which according to a statement from the Office of the Attorney General "conspired to conceal damaging research from the public".

-- The Master Settlement Agreement

Source: Associated Press, Office of the Attorney General (US).

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today