From: bill@smokescreen.org
Date: Mon, 03/10/03
According to this article, a Miles verdict won't be rendered today,
allowing Philip Morris more time to lobby for lawsuit protection
legislation. To send a letter to Gov. Blagojevich and key IL legislators
urging opposition to PM protection legislation, go to
www.smokefree.org/IL The bills (HB 276 & SB 102) are at
http://www.legis.state.il.us/legislation/default.asp
'LIGHT' CIGARETTE CASE IS A MILESTONE
By Trisha L. Howard
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
2003-03-08
Lawyers in a class-action case against tobacco manufacturer Philip
Morris USA will ask a Madison County judge on Monday to assess at least
$21 billion in compensatory and punitive damages - a figure that would
set a record for the St. Louis area even if the judge approved only a
tenth of the request.
The class-action suit, the first of its kind in the nation to go to
trial, claims that Philip Morris falsely marketed Marlboro Light and
Cambridge Light cigarettes as lower in tar and nicotine, even though it
knew that smokers would inhale more deeply or smoke more cigarettes to
compensate for the lower nicotine levels.
Philip Morris officials deny the charges and say that the case never
should have been certified as a class action because fraud claims
inherently involve individual knowledge and perception.
Madison County Circuit Judge Nicholas Byron, who has overseen the bench
trial, told lawyers for both sides Friday that his verdict would be
delayed for at least 30 days while he takes post-trial motions.
But earlier in the week, news that he might rule after closing arguments
Monday surprised Wall Street, causing the stock price for Philip Morris'
parent company to drop $1.71 on Thursday and $1.46 on Friday, closing at
$35.82.
Some Illinois legislators have also followed the trial's progress,
proposing a law that would cap at $100 million the amount of money that
a tobacco company would have to post to appeal a billion-dollar verdict.
The bill has passed the Illinois House and is pending in the Senate.
Several states have crafted similar appeal-bond laws in hopes of
protecting the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, in which tobacco
companies agreed to pay 46 states a total of $206 billion.
But several people contacted for this article said that a verdict in
favor of the plaintiffs in this case would probably have no effect on
the states' settlement, or even the company's financial condition.
Said one industry analyst who asked to remain unidentified: "You're
looking at a bad headline that makes the stock go down in the short
term. But in the long term, it doesn't have an impact on the valuation
of these companies."
A groundbreaking case
In many respects, the case has already broken ground for tobacco
litigation nationwide and for the circuit court in Madison County.
Unlike other suits against tobacco companies that claim personal
injuries from smoking, this case is based on the idea that consumers
suffered economic damage by buying a product they believed was safer
than regular cigarettes.
Regardless of the outcome, the trial "will provide a good road map" for
both plaintiffs' and defense lawyers in similar cases pending in other
states, said Edward L. Sweda Jr., a senior lawyer with the Tobacco
Products Liability Project at Northeastern University School of Law in
Boston.
"Lawyers will learn from the mistakes and the good points on both sides,
and they will take those lessons to heart when they go to trial," Sweda
said.
The case also has the distinction of being the first class-action suit
in Madison County to make it to trial. Until now, all of the
class-action cases in Madison County that have resulted in monetary
awards have been resolved by settlements.
Lawyers made their opening arguments Jan. 21 to a courtroom crowded with
representatives from both sides and curious onlookers, a few of them
lawyers involved in other tobacco litigation.
For the next six weeks, lawyers wheeled boxes of evidence in and out of
Byron's third-floor courtroom. A group of 10 court reporters, some of
them working around the clock, produced daily transcripts of the trial,
at a cost of $4.20 a page.
"They pretty much have stayed up all night" to deliver the transcripts,
said supervisor Kathy Harrison. "Some of them don't go home."
On Friday morning, several of the plaintiffs' expert witnesses
participated in a telephone media conference in which they reiterated
their testimony that Philip Morris knew light cigarettes were only
lighter according to government-mandated machine tests, but not when
actually used by smokers.
"What these people were being offered was risk reduction," said Dr.
David Burns, editor of a recent National Cancer Institute study
assessing the risks of smoking low-tar cigarettes. "That is not what
they got."
William Ohlemeyer, vice president and associate general counsel for
Philip Morris USA, held a separate telephone conference Friday afternoon
to dispute those claims.
The company's lawyers have argued that the government - not the tobacco
industry - worked to convince smokers that light cigarettes were lower
in tar and nicotine, and thus safer, than regular cigarettes.
"This case involves a product sold with a federally mandated health
warning that this product could cause cancer, and sold at the exact same
price as regular cigarettes," Ohlemeyer said. "Some of the class members
(who testified) are still smoking Marlboro Lights, notwithstanding their
claims that they were somehow defrauded."
No end in sight
No jury verdict in the St. Louis area has approached $1 billion,
according to available records. No verdict reported since 1996 has even
passed the $500 million mark, according to Verdict Reporter Inc., which
tracks and publishes civil case data.
In Illinois, the largest verdict to date - almost $1.2 billion - was
handed down four years ago in a class-action case charging that State
Farm Insurance had defrauded its customers by promoting questionable
auto-body parts for repairs. That case is still in the appeals process.
If Byron rules in favor of the plaintiffs and hands down a record
verdict, the case won't be resolved for years.
Ohlemeyer said the company would appeal an adverse verdict, taking it to
the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
Even those who haven't followed the trial but know the judicial system
well said that plaintiffs' attorneys would have a slim chance of
collecting on a huge award.
Said John Kirkton, editor of the Cook County (Ill.) Jury Verdict
Reporter: "I would be very surprised if a multibillion-dollar verdict on
something like this stood."
Reporter Trisha L. Howard:
E-mail: thoward@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 618-659-3640
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