 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Williams v. Philip Morris Inc.6/5/2002
Argued and submitted October 26, 2001.
On appeal, reversed and remanded with instructions to enter judgment on jury verdict; affirmed on cross-appeal.
Defendant Phillip Morris, Inc., is this country's largest manufacturer of cigarettes. Plaintiff is the widow and personal representative of the estate of Jesse Williams Williams, who began smoking defendant's cigarettes in the early 1950s and continued until his death from a smoking-related lung cancer in 1997. Plaintiff brought this action to recover compensatory and punitive damages for Williams' death. The jury found for plaintiff on her claims of negligence and fraud, awarding economic damages of $21,485.80 and non-economic damages of $800,000 on each claim. On the negligence claim, it found that Williams' negligence was 50 percent of the cause of his harm and declined to award punitive damages. It awarded punitive damages of $79.5 million on the fraud claim. The trial court reduced the punitive damages award to $32 million, on the ground that the jury's award was excessive under the United States Constitution, and reduced the award of non-economic damages to $500,000 in accordance with ORS 18.560(1). See Greist v. Phillips, 322 Or 281, 906 P2d 789 (1995). It then entered judgment on the fraud claim as modified. Plaintiff appeals, assigning error to the reduction of the punitive damages award. Defendant cross-appeals, assigning error to a number of rulings relating to both the fraud and negligence claims. We reverse on the appeal, affirm on the cross-appeal, and remand for the trial court to enter judgment accordingly.
Because of the jury's verdict, we state the facts most favorably to plaintiff, drawing all reasonable inferences in her favor. Northwest Natural Gas Co. v. Chase Gardens, Inc., 328 Or 487, 490-91, 982 P2d 1117 (1999). We first describe the facts relating to Williams himself, reserving most of the facts relating to defendant's conduct for our discussion of the various legal issues that the parties raise. Williams began smoking Phillip Morris cigarettes while he was in the Army in Korea in the early 1950s. The Army provided the cigarettes, and other soldiers told him that the smoke would help keep mosquitoes away. He smoked them until the mid-1950s, when he switched to Marlboros, another Phillip Morris brand. He made the switch about the time that defendant repositioned the Marlboro brand from one that was oriented toward women to one of the first male-oriented filter cigarettes. Williams continued to smoke Marlboros or Marlboro Lights for the rest of his life, ultimately increasing to three packs a day. At that point he was spending half of his waking hours smoking.
Both Williams' wife and their children encouraged him to stop smoking, telling him that cigarettes were dangerous to his health. In response, he insisted that the cigarette companies would not sell cigarettes if they were as dangerous as his family claimed, and he stated that he had heard on television that cigarettes do not cause cancer. He quoted to them from what he said he had heard about why cigarette smoking was not harmful to a smoker's health. He also told his wife, "the tobacco company, they never said that anything like this is going to harm you. They never said there was anything wrong with the tobacco." When one of his sons would try to get him to read articles about the dangers of smoking, Williams would respond by finding published assertions showing that cigarette smoking is not dangerous.
Williams nevertheless made several unsuccessful attempts to stop smoking, trying various methods that included quitting "cold turkey," reducing the number of cigarettes, using nicotine patches, and using nicotine gum. He did
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Oregon Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|