Posted on 12/14/2010 2:52:48 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
A Massachusetts jury today ordered cigarette manufacturer Lorillard Inc. to pay $71 million in damages to a dead smoker's family for allegedly seducing the Boston woman decades ago into smoking Newport cigarettes.
The Suffolk Superior Court jury awarded compensatory damages of $50 million to the estate of Marie Evans and $21 million to her son, William Evans. A hearing on punitive damages in the lawsuit has been scheduled for Thursday. The total amount of damages awarded could rise significantly at that hearing.
The case was the first to claim that Lorillard had decided to target minority communities with samples of Newports, a menthol brand more popular among black communities.
Gregg Perry, a Lorillard spokesman, said the company denied the allegations. He said the company would appeal and was "confident it will prevail."
The jury found that the cigarette company was negligent in passing out samples of cigarettes to Evans and other black children when they were growing up in the Orchard Hill housing development in Boston's Roxbury section -- and in denying for years the health risks associated with cigarettes.
Evans was 54 when she died of lung cancer in 2002 after smoking Newports for more than 40 years. Weeks before she died, she gave a videotaped deposition that was played for jurors in which she said she received the samples when she was as young as 9 years old, and she would trade them for candy. By the time she was 13, she said, she started smoking them.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Isn’t America great? You make bad choices and can force others to pay for it. What a country!
Gee, and after all that extortion money the tobacco companies paid to the states.
Why not go for broke? Sue all the classmates who encouraged her to smoke with them because they were “cool”. What about the papermill manufacturer who sold the cartridge tubes? They knew they were making them for cigs. Let’s just sue everyone for our tough breaks in life....
Oh those evil white men.
Another reason why there are more lawyers in America than engineers .
I have NEVER heard of “cigarette men” driving aroound handing out packs of menthols to kids. Not even in the 60’s. Unless the guy was the neighborhood pervert.
Compensatory damages are supposed to reflect actual costs. This woman must have been worth a fortune.
I'm guessing with cause she was a worthless soul.
This will have the effect of driving business offshore to places where lawyers are useless. Imagine a country whose only profitable business is stealing money from productive industry.
The Native Americans taught whitey about tobacco.
This kind of obscene crap must be stopped. Sniveling, whimpering scum with no responsibility, and their lawyers.
Boston jurors yelled “Death to personal morality and responsibility” as they did this. Idiots....enemies of our country too!
Ah yes. Maybe we should send all those greedy lawyers offshore. In the meantime, let's give the people that gave away the money, probably raving moonbat smoking Nazis, a total pass.
After all, it was the lawyers that gave the secret signal to THE JURY to give away 71 million $ - Right?
Personal responsibility is dead. People keep smoking BECAUSE THEY WANT TO SMOKE, not because they can’t stop. There are more ex-smokers than smokers.
This is but another example of the utter immorality of the American people. She knew smoking was bad but made that choice. The immorality is in the jury for confiscating that money from the tobacco company. Even if the tobacco company were guilty it should not have to pay $71 million. This is out and out theft by jury.
Shouldn’t families of druggies be able to sue the drug dealers under this concept? Surely those addicts would have amounted to something in life except for the dealers.....
They’ve come a long way from the back of the bus...
The company shouldn’t be on the hook for anything. They made a product and she chose to use it.
After all, it was the lawyers that gave the secret signal to THE JURY to give away 71 million $ - Right?
John Edwards? Is that you again, channeling.
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