Posted on 08/11/2005 3:17:53 PM PDT by SmithL
LOS ANGELES - California's Supreme Court has affirmed a state appeals court decision to slash in half a $100 million damage award against Philip Morris Inc. in a lawsuit by a smoker who later died of lung cancer.
The justices voted 5-0 on Wednesday not to review the decision by a 2nd District Court of Appeal in April, which reduced the damages in the civil trial to $50 million but also let stand $5.5 million in compensatory damages to Richard Boeken.
Boeken, a two-pack-a-day smoker since he was 13, died in 2002. He was 57.
Attorney Michael Piuze said it would have been valuable to know what the justices' views on law surrounding punitive damages were in the case.
He added that he was disappointed in the Court of Appeal's decision.
"Their analysis was fine right up to the point where it was time to put money on the table," Boeken said.
No one was available for comment after business hours Thursday at the offices of Philip Morris' parent Altria Group Inc. in New York.
During the trial, Boeken testified that he was the victim of a tobacco industry campaign that portrayed smoking as "cool" but concealed its dangers.
In 2001, a Superior Court jury found the company guilty of negligence, misrepresentation, fraud and selling a defective product. It awarded Boeken $3 billion in punitive damages, which a judge later reduced to $100 million.
The appellate panel further reduced that to $50 million in September.
The lunacy of the jury versus that of the judge is only a matter of degree. Someone who smoked two packs per day and was shocked, simply shocked to find that he became ill from smoking was fooled only by himself.
I have no use for Philip Morris..............but even less for these lawsuits and the ambulance chasers who pursue them, and the so-called "victims"
Both the judge who OK'd it going ahead an the ambulance chaser who filed it should be disbarred.
This guy should have been awarded $0.
I'm so sick of "victims."
In todays world if you do not know cigarettes cause cancer, or at least know they help cause it, you have a problem with denial.
This guy was responsible for his own actions and doesn't deserve a judgement of any kind. These lawsuits are BS and I am glad the senate passed the legislation to prevent the same senseless type of lawsuit against firearms manufacturers.
The only "victims" in these senseless lawsuits are smokers of PM products...........PM will just jack their prices once again to cover the costs.
Why is it the defense attorney(s) can't hammer this point ?
Just think what threads we'd have if Walmart was the largest seller of cigarettes in the country. The left would go nuts, the pseudo conservative FR do gooders would be ballisic and no other threads would ever appear. LOL!!!
They do, but most of these things are done on emotion, not fact.
It actually wouldn't surprise me if WM wasn't the largest seller of cigarettes, in some areas at least :)
Just think what Saturdays will become!!
This isn't new information, as you surely must know.
I've been smoking since I was 11 years old, and if I drop dead tomorrow, I blame no one.
The essence of freedom is making one's own choices in the crapshoot called "life."
There are innumerable choices people make in life that are "unhealthy."
The unhealthiest choice is the acquiesence to the notion that perfect strangers are entitled to dictate to other adults how to live their lives.
This is the critical point at which individual freedom breaks down.
The "second-hand" smoke canard had to be constructed in order for the usual suspects to sustain their viability.
Too bad they can't just live their own lives, as small as they must be.
Good point.
If we think they are cantankerous now.........hoooooooo boy!!!!!!!!
Of course it was.......and you gave the reason in a previous statement........
The unhealthiest choice is the acquiesence to the notion that perfect strangers are entitled to dictate to other adults how to live their lives.
The smokers wouldn't acquiesce and so the busybodies needed a new tactic.....and when folks weren't buying into it regarding workplaces and hospitality places, they then resorted to the big guns........THE CHILDREN........
I started smoking when I was 17 and quit when I was 20 because I remembered that film! Yep, people have known of the health effects of ciagrettes for many, many years. These lawsuits should never, ever, be brought to trial.
They're big enough to hold on until the competition buckles.
Yes, hiding behind children's milk moustaches.
What simpering cowards.
I've long suspected it's because they still think of themselves as children, and remember all those pick-up ball games they were never chosen for.
With good reason, I might add.
Sweet revenge, for the never-grown-up.
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