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Patricia’s gumption, and her desire to do the right thing, would carry her into battle against a huge corporation she knew had lied to her—and which was lying to and recklessly endangering all of our children. When her legal battle ended, she directed a portion of the monetary gain to the Patricia Henley Foundation supporting opportunities for children in the performing arts.
When Patricia was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in 1997, and given four months to live, she researched and discovered thousands of documents from the tobacco industry indicating that they lied about the additives in cigarettes, and the dangers of these ingredients to their customers. Her response to those who had trouble reconciling her righteous wrath with her lifetime of smoking was to point out the unethical marketing to teens. . ..
successfully sued Phillip Morris and the jury awarded her $51 million. It was, at that time, the first award in an anti-tobacco case in California, and the first case in the United States where punitive damages were upheld against a tobacco company. Appeals, over seven years, reduced the award to $10.5 million.
The Patricia Henley Foundation was finally funded in Santa Barbara in 2005 after the State Supreme Court refused to lower the judgment another time. Patricia, defying the medical professionals’ estimates of her longevity, focused the foundation on the mission on “inspiring the voice of youth through creative arts.”
The result was the Theatre of Life for Children (TLC), whose production of “A Tribute to the Musical” sold out three shows at The Marjorie Luke Theatre. . . .
Patricia never told anyone to stop smoking but only to make informed decisions. She described for performing cast members how her voice descended from soprano to lower-than-alto as a result of smoking. She was scheduled to cut a country western CD called Hard Lovin’ Lady (a title she gave herself after three marriages). But her voice had become so raspy that her guitarist joked, “I don’t think they make music in your key.”
In her opening statement during the trial, Patricia’s attorney Madelyn Chamber held up a pack of cigarettes and told the jury, “This is a case about a pack of lies.” . . .
Their high-powered attorneys’ attempts to confuse the issues didn’t sway one juror from finding the Phillip Morris executives guilty. . . .
It sent shock waves around the world when Patricia won this historic lawsuit. “HENLEY IS A HERO,” shouted a headline in a French newspaper. Patricia appeared on 20/20 and was featured in People and Forbes magazines. After her victory, she didn’t stop; she diligently wrote letters to corporations such as Disney to ask them to make Disneyland and Disney World smoke-free.
Fall of 2008 brought an end to the remission of the cancer that was supposed to have taken Patricia a decade earlier. She held on, with her usual courage, until July 31, 2009.
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John Wayne, Bob Marley, Steve McQueen and Peter Jennings.
Each man was among the best in his profession, and each, in his own way, epitomized cool. But the mystique was shattered when they each fell victim to lung cancer - a hazard of smoking brought again into the national spotlight by Jennings' death Sunday.
"It freaked me out," said Michele Ross, 39, of Chatsworth, when she realized Jennings was just 67 when he died. . . .
Susan Fox, 55, a travel company executive, has been smoking since she was 13 the same age as Jennings when he started.
"I think twice about it all the time," said the North Hills resident. "There's no allure to smoking. But it's discouraging when he stopped 20 years ago and still got the disease." . . .
Former Glendale resident Patricia Henley knows firsthand what it's like to be taken to the brink of death. . .
"I was scared I was going to die and afraid I wouldn't."
She successfully sued Philip Morris
A protracted case involving a chronic smoker who successfully sued tobacco giant Philip Morris for hooking her on tobacco as a teenager came to an end Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the company's appeal of her $10.5 million damage award.
Prudential Equity Group reiterated an "overweight" rating and $70 target price on Altria Group, saying the recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the company's Philip Morris division isn't likely to encourage other filings. The court refused to review the Henley verdict, an individual product liability case lost by the company in February 1999. As a result of the most recent decision, Philip Morris will now have to pay out approximately $16.2 million in damages and interest, versus the original $51.5 million award. "Our view is that individual product liability cases used to be a significant issue for cigarette manufacturers," Prudential said. But in the wake of the court's ruling in the State Farm case, which dramatically reduced the likelihood of a large punitive damage, "we believe that these cases represent nothing more than a nuisance at this point."
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Philip Morris, setting the stage for the tobacco giant to pay more than $16 million to a Glendale woman who contracted lung cancer. It would be the largest payment and the first punitive damages ever paid to an individual smoker. . . .
Although the award eventually was reduced to $10.5 million, Philip Morris will have to write a check for $16.7 million because of interest accrued during the years of appeals. Henley, 58, said she planned to give most of the money to a foundation to teach children about the ills of smoking and treat kids with respiratory ailments and cancer.
"This is a good day for the children," said Henley, who had long complained that her case would never end. "This is punishment money from the tobacco industry, but it needs to be turned into money that's going to help people." . . .
after paying taxes and legal fees, she would keep the compensatory damages to live on and donate the rest to the Patricia Henley Foundation, based in Santa Barbara.
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday left standing a $10.5 million San Francisco Superior Court judgment in favor of a longtime smoker against Philip Morris USA.
The court denied certiorari in the case of Philip Morris Inc. v. Henley, in which the cigarette manufacturer argued, among other things, that a punitive damage award of six times the amount of compensatory damages was excessive. . . . . . .
She said that she continued to smoke "Marlboro Red" until 1989, then switched to "Marlboro Light" after she called the company and was assured that it was "low-tar." As a result of that phone call, she said, she doubled her consumption, to three-and-a-half packs per day.
"At least with respect to people like Patricia Henley, who started smoking before any of the warning labels were on, when they were teenagers, the industry has real vulnerability," said Alan Morrison, one of Henley's attorneys.
The case once threatened New York-based Philip Morris with a $51.5 million verdict, handed down in 1999. A series of court rulings cut the punitive-damages part of the award from $50 million to $9 million, on top of $1.5 million in compensatory damages.
Altria shares fell $1.44 to $63.28 in New York Stock Exchange trading at 4:02 p.m. New York time.
"We're disappointed that the court didn't take the case, but it won't prevent us from successfully defending other cases," said William S. Ohlemeyer, Philip Morris USA associate general counsel.
The Henley case marks only the fourth time the industry has had to pay a verdict to an individual smoker, the second time for Philip Morris, according to Edward L. Sweda, Jr., a lawyer at the anti-smoking Tobacco Products Liability Project in Boston.
Diagnosed in 1997 with lung cancer and given just four months to live, Patricia Henley decided to spend her last days fighting the Philip Morris tobacco company so that others would know the truth about the dangers of smoking.
Now, seven years after filing suit -- and with her cancer in remission -- the former singer can boast that she is one of the few people to go up against Big Tobacco -- and win. . . .
"People have asked me, Why did you think you had the right to sue this company?" she said in an interview. "I had no other choice.
"This was the only course I had to prove what I knew, what they were doing to injure people, to get children addicted to this product so they have another customer for 10, 15, 20 years," said Henley, who is 58 and smoked Marlboros for 35 years.
"Believe me, fighting for this doesn't make you a hero. It makes you a human being."
This was the only course I had to prove what I knew, what they were doing to injure people, to get children addicted to this product so they have another customer for 10, 15, 20 years. Believe me, fighting for this doesn't make you a hero. It makes you a human being."Patricia Henley
They can downplay it all they want, but the reality is they took this case as far as they could go and they lost. I think that this will encourage other people that they can pursue a case, that the tobacco companies are not invulnerable. And I think it will take less and less time over the years, because a lot of law has been written because of this case, and there's a road map for other cases.Henley attorney, Madelyn Chaber.
The Supreme Court declined Monday to consider whether to reduce $10.5 million in damages a jury awarded against Philip Morris USA to a former smoker with lung cancer.
Justices let stand a lower court ruling that upheld the award to Patricia Henley of Glendale, Calif. At issue is whether the amount is too excessive in light of a 2003 Supreme Court ruling that limits the amount of punitive damages a jury can award.
Shares of Altria Group Inc (NYSE: MO) . fell Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review its appeal to overturn a $10.5 million judgment brought against the tobacco giant by a California smoker who contracted lung cancer. A component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Altria lost $1.44, or 2.2 percent, to $63.28 at the close.
On Monday, March 21, 2005, the United States Supreme Court declined to consider Philip Morris' appeal of a $10.5 million judgment against it by a former smoker with lung cancer.
The justices let stand a lower court ruling upholding the award to Patricia Henley of Glendale, California. The case marks the first time a punitive damage award against any cigarette company has been upheld by the high court and is the first time that Philip Morris will have to pay a judgment.
Ms. Henley, who smoked Marlboro cigarettes for 35 years, started when she was 15, before any warnings. She was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1998 and after undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, she is presently in remission. She sued Philip Morris accusing the tobacco company of engaging in a 50 year campaign to promote cigarettes to teenagers while denying and misrepresenting the true hazards of addiction and disease as well as fraudulently marketing light cigarettes as "safer," although the company knew they were not any safer than regular cigarettes.
Altria Group Inc.'s (MO) Philip Morris USA lost an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a $10.5 million judgment awarded to a California smoker who sued over her lung cancer.
The high court's decision to turn away the case without a review will end a temporary stay of the judgment granted by the justices while they pondered the appeal. The Supreme Court granted the temporary stay in October.
The $10.5 million jury verdict came in a lawsuit filed by Patricia Henley . . .
Philip Morris appealed to have the verdict overturned, saying it didn't believe Supreme Court precedent, which favors federal regulation of cigarette advertising, allows state punitive damages in an advertising case. The company's appeal also asked the Supreme Court to clarify judicial procedures state judges should follow when reducing a punitive damages verdict, as was done in the Henley case.
"Under such circumstances the entirety of the award is tainted," Philip Morris said. The company had asked for a new trial, but the high court's denial of its appeal leaves the verdict standing.
The U.S Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA in a California case involving $9 million in punitive damages awarded to a former longtime smoker who has lung cancer.
Without comment, the justices declined to consider the tobacco company's appeal arguing that the case should be reviewed by the Supreme Court or at least sent back for further consideration.
The case involved Patricia Henley
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday by Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA in a California case involving $9 million in punitive damages awarded to a former longtime smoker who has lung cancer.
The case involved Patricia Henley, who sued Altria's (Research) Philip Morris after developing lung cancer. Her attorneys argued at trial that there were no warnings on cigarette packages when she began smoking in 1961 and that the company had hidden evidence about the health risks of smoking and its addictiveness.
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday agreed to allow Philip Morris USA to delay payment of a $10.5 million San Francisco Superior Court judgment in favor of a longtime smoker.
In a brief order, the court stayed the judgment until the company's petition for writ of certiorari in Philip Morris Inc.v. Henley is ruled on. . . .
In the panel's most recent opinion, it said it was appropriate under Campbell to limit the award to six times the compensatory damages.
The high court, Justice Patricia Sepulveda acknowledged, said that an award of more than four times compensatory damages may cross "the line of constitutional impropriety." But the 6 to 1 ratio set by the panel, she concluded, "is justified here by the extraordinarily reprehensible conduct of which plaintiff was a direct victim."