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Posted on 10/04/2002 12:58:30 PM PDT by RedBloodedAmerican
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:08:23 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
LOS ANGELES (AP) A jury awarded a record-shattering $28 billion in punitive damages Friday to a former smoker who sued Philip Morris Inc. for fraud and negligence.
The Superior Court jury awarded the amount to Betty Bullock, 64, who started smoking when she was 17 and was diagnosed last year with lung cancer that has since spread to her liver.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
SHEEEESH...MUD
Yeah, my grandmother died in 1976. She was a heavy smoker. My mother died of pneumonia resulting from Lupus, but cigarette smoking probably weakened her immune system (it certainly gave her a horrible cough).
Disclaimer: I don't actually believe I should receive cash from this settlement. But heck, if one guy gets 28 BILLION, maybe I could have enough to take some time off of work and hike the Pacific Crest Trail next year (as I plan on doing anyway)? Just ten thousand dollars, that's a drop in the bucket!
People who smoke for years knowing the full dangers of smoking and then suing while on their death beds are absolute morons and deserve to die painful, agonizing deaths.
Here's what you should do: Sue the *state* for billions. Use the legal argument that since they left it legal, instead of banning such an obviously dangerous substance, they were selling out the health of your relative for the billions they were making in tobacco taxes, and sending the implicit message that smoking was a safe, legistlature-approved activity.
So, Mr. Jones, you ADMIT that you serviced the truck that delivered the fertilizer to the farmer who grew the tobacco that Phillip-Morris put in those cigarettes!!!???
And doomed.
I can't agree that they are morons. They are smart enough to take advantage of state governments' phantom tax increase bonanza disguised as a war on the tobacco industry by using the real morons -- California's jury pool.
While I wouldn't say they deserve to die painful deaths, I certainly don't think they ought to be rewarded for choosing to believe the manufacturers over the warning of just about every doctor worth his/her license to practice -- and the Federal government. That warning from the Surgeon General has been staring them in the face every time they pull a "cancer stick" from its pack for a period spanning five decades.
Don't get me wrong. The guys at the head of the tobacco industry are criminals for concealing the truth, and they should be in prison for lying before Congress about their knowledge of the ill-effects of smoking and the addictiveness of nicotine. But the states, with their phony crackdown on the tobacco industry, are like crooked beat cops who take advantage of down-and-out prostitutes. They won't arrest the whores, but in return they can have their way with them whenever they want.
Yup. Easy to give away money when it's someone else's money ain't it?
More to the point, ya gotta wonder how much this golden child made in here entire life that makes her such a valuable member of society to rate this kind of money!
What the hell did the jury do? pick a number out of a hat?
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