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Philip Morris USA said today it will seek further review of a jury verdict awarding approximately $56 million in compensatory damages and $244 million in punitive damages.
The verdict came in the trial of a so-called Engle case following a 2006 Supreme Court decision that decertified a class action but allowed former class members to file individual lawsuits.
"From the beginning, this case was marked by a fundamentally unfair and unconstitutional trial plan that allowed the jury to rely on findings by a prior jury that have no connection to the plaintiff," said Murray Garnick, Altria Client Services senior vice president and associate general counsel, speaking on behalf of Philip Morris USA.
"Today's verdict was the result of numerous erroneous rulings by the trial judge that allowed the jury to hear extensive evidence totally unrelated to the individual smoker
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A Broward Circuit Court Jury returned a $300 million verdict against Philip Morris USA within hours of closing arguments this afternoon in favor of Cindy Naugle, the sister of Jim Naugle, a former mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Naugle, 61, who stopped smoking in 1993, smoked her first cigarette in 1968 when she was twenty years old because she thought they "made her look older." She told the jury that had she known then what the tobacco companies already knew, but had concealed, namely that nicotine is a highly-additive drug and cigarettes were considered by Philip Morris to be a "drug delivery device," she never would have taken that first puff. The jury assessed $56.6 million against Philip Morris for Naugle's past and future medical expenses as well as for her pain and suffering. It also assessed punitive damages in the amount of $244 million to punish the company for its misconduct. The jury also found Ms. Naugle was 10% responsible because of her decision to start smoking.
Ms. Naugle, who tried unsuccessfully to quit smoking for many years, now needs 24-hour oxygen and must travel in a wheelchair because the simple act of walking leaves her exhausted. "Cindy admitted her fault to the jury," said her attorney, Robert W. Kelley of the Fort Lauderdale law firm Kelley/Uustal. "But Philip Morris refused to accept any responsibility for her emphysema, even though she was an addicted customer for 25 years," he added. . . .
Kelley went on to say: "The cigarette companies managed to hide the truth about their product for a long time, but the truth is out now. And when the jury finally hears the truth about what these companies knew and when they knew it, they almost always side with the addicted smokers, most of whom started smoking as teenagers before there were any warning labels on cigarette packs." Kelley predicts the industry is in for a long series of losses because "most Americans are fed-up with corporate fraud and misconduct."
Philip Morris USA (PM USA) filed lawsuits against ten retailers selling counterfeit versions of the company's Marlboro� brand cigarettes in New York and New Jersey.
"The New York metropolitan area continues to be a lucrative market for counterfeit and contraband cigarette smugglers," said Joe Murillo, vice president and associate general counsel, Altria Client Services, speaking on behalf of PM USA. "High excise taxes, coupled with New York state's lack of effective tax enforcement, only makes the problem worse," added Murillo.
"These lawsuits are the latest in a series of filings by Philip Morris USA aimed at combating the sale of counterfeit cigarettes in New York and New Jersey," said Murillo. Since May 2009, Philip Morris has filed lawsuits against 27 retail locations in New York and New Jersey for selling counterfeit Marlboro� brand cigarettes
In addition to violating many trademark laws, counterfeit cigarettes are almost always sold without the appropriate federal and state excise tax. The counterfeit cigarettes purchased from the retailers named in today's suits bore no tax stamp or a counterfeit tax stamp. As a result, the applicable excise taxes were not paid. . . .
Eastern District of New York
Maria’s Deli Grocery 143-20 101 Avenue, Richmond Hills, NY 11419
Loveras Grocery 996 Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11225
Southern District of New York
Aloshe Mini Market 1889 Guerlain Street, Bronx, NY 10461
El Barrio Grocery Deli 39 West 183rd Street, Bronx, NY 10453
Fernandez Grocery Corp. 1665 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10029
Philip Morris USA is accusing 10 New York and New Jersey retailers of selling counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes.
The nation's largest tobacco company announced the federal lawsuits against the retailers Thursday.
When it comes to smoking, Indonesia remains the last paradise for a puff in Southeast Asia. Those addicted to cigarettes can openly light up in public places without worrying about tough anti-tobacco penalties found in the rest of the region.
This reality has been shaped by the power of local and multinational tobacco companies on the archipelago of some 224 million people.
At the finals for the recent ‘Mild Live Wanted 2009' countrywide talent contest, in the former colonial city of Bandung, competing musicians belted out their songs from around 3 p.m till midnight.
For Indonesia's small, yet vocal, anti-tobacco activists, these concerts - billed to promote local talent - offered more than music to fill their ears. They were the latest in a string of publicity drives of the powerful multinational tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI) in the country. . . .
The prospect of more deaths from this ”smoking epidemic” has still to move Jakarta, which is still to sign the world's first public health treaty - the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which has been in force since early 2005.
By contrast, this treaty has been signed by Indonesia's nine neighbours in the region, which include Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. . . .
But in other forms of entertainment, the publicity for tobacco companies are more direct, revealed Kania during a telephone interview from Jakarta. ”There was a film for teenagers last year where one of the actresses, who is still in junior high school, was smoking in scenes.”
Such an effort to glamorise smoking goes to extremes, at times. ”There are so many scenes of people smoking in Indonesian movies where the camera even zooms in to show the cigarette brand,” adds Kania. ”There is no regulation like in other countries.”
It is little wonder why a regional anti-tobacco lobby has described Southeast Asia's largest country as a ”cash cow” for the tobacco industry.
A jury on Monday recommended that cigarette maker Philip Morris USA should pay $13.8 million in punitive damages to the daughter of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer.
The panel voted 9-3 in favor of Bullock's daughter Jodie Bullock, who is now the plaintiff in the case. Betty Bullock died of lung cancer in February 2003. She had sued Philip Morris in April 2001, accusing the company of fraud and product liability. A jury in 2002 recommended Philip Morris pay a record $28 billion in punitive damages to Bullock, but a judge later reduced the award to $28 million.
In 2008, the 2nd District Court of Appeal reversed the jury's decision and remanded the case for a new trial over the punitive damages. Philip Morris said the $28 million remained excessive.
However, the original jury recommended the tobacco company pay Bullock $750,000 in damages and $100,000 for pain and suffering, a verdict that still stands.
In a statement, Richmond, Virginia-based Altria Group Inc., which owns Philip Morris, said any amount given to Bullock's daughter is unwarranted. . . .
Plaintiff's attorney Michael Piuze said the jury's verdict amounted to a "slap on the wrist for Philip Morris."
"I liked it better when it was $28 billion," said Piuze, who represented Betty Bullock after she filed the lawsuit. "She wanted me to beat the crap out of Philip Morris, and we did it once."
For the 42 percent of Americans who smoke cigarettes or once did, a ruling from the state's highest court last month seemed to offer hope that a simple screening tool could help them ward off advanced lung cancer.
The judges decided that Philip Morris USA may have to pay for lung scans for smokers so they can get early warning if they've developed cancer - and get treatment before it spreads into a deadly mass. (A federal court would have to affirm the state's decision before the company would have to pay.)
Even before the court weighed in, advocates had been pressing politicians for money to pay for CT scans for high-risk but asymptomatic people - insurers generally don't cover the test for screening - particularly since a group of New York researchers published results in 2006 suggesting that screening is saving the lives of smokers, former smokers, and people exposed to secondhand smoke and other hazards, such as asbestos. Some smokers are so convinced of the benefits of CTs they pay the $400 screening fee themselves.
"Our movement is really taking hold,'' said Joanne O'Connor, cochair of the Lung Cancer Alliance in Massachusetts, which is lobbying legislators for funding. "I wouldn't want to find out [I had lung cancer] like my sister did when she was already stage four. She died six months later.''
But even as pressure for CT scanning builds, many of the country's top cancer specialists are saying not so fast. . . .
The Massachusetts Supreme Court relied in part on Miller's expert testimony during the lawsuit brought against Philip Morris by two Massachusetts smokers. Since the 2006 study was published, however, the New England Journal has published three corrections, including one from Henschke revealing that some of the funding for the study came from cigarette-maker Liggett Tobacco.
ALTRIA GROUP IS VIEWED AS ONE OF THE country's most fearsome companies because of its willingness to use its political clout and legal muscle to maintain the dominance of its domestic cigarette brands.
Known on Wall Street as Big MO -- a reference to its ticker symbol, which harks back to its prior identity as Philip Morris and to its lengthy record of strong shareholder returns -- Altria lately has done little for investors. The Street is concerned that the company overpaid early this year for smokeless-tobacco maker UST, and that Marlboro, its top seller and the No. 1 cigarette ...
What many e-cigarette users have feared from day one could be in the works: Philip Morris, the biggest maker of tobacco cigarettes in the United States, has been discovered to be in negotiations with Ruyan Group, which manufactured the original e-cigarette starting in 2005. A short news article on Quamnet.com states the seriousness of the matter:
"Ruyan Group said that an agreement between the Company and Philip Morris International Management S.A. could not be reached on matters relating to the co-operation between them on its "electronic cigarettes" by the end of the first and exclusive phase of negotiations."
A multimillion-dollar award from Philip Morris to the estate of a Salem woman will hinge on a narrow legal point argued Monday in the Oregon Supreme Court.
At stake is a 2002 jury award of $150 million in punitive damages against the cigarette maker, later reduced by the trial judge to $100 million, and then reversed in 2006 by the Oregon Court of Appeals.
On a 5-4 vote, the appeals court upheld a verdict of fraud and negligence against Philip Morris, and an award of $169,000 in compensatory damages to the family of Michelle Schwarz, who died of lung cancer in 1999 at age 53.
Schwarz's family argued in Multnomah County Circuit Court that Philip Morris had fraudulently marketed its low-tar Merit brand, which Schwarz switched to in 1976, as safer than regular cigarettes.
But the appeals court ruled the jury should not have considered the harm to individuals outside Oregon in deciding the amount of punitive damages.
The appeals court ordered new proceedings in circuit court to determine only those damages, but the case was appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court.
A lawyer representing the Schwarz family, Maureen Leonard of Portland, said Monday that "more reprehensible conduct (by Philip Morris) justifies higher punitive damages."
Cigarettes' big three—Altria, R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard—are facing aggressive challenges from down trading and segment shifting in the convenience-store channel.
The nation's top three brands—Marlboro, Camel and Newport—are battling to hold onto market position in the convenience channel, some six months since Congress approved a record increase in the federal excise tax (FET) to finance expansion of the national children's insurance program, SCHIP.
Based on an exclusive survey conducted by CSP Daily News and UBS Tobacco Analyst Nik Modi, Lorillard appears to be the safest of the three.
Responding to the survey question asking, "Are you seeing substantial trade down from the big three premium brands?" half of the survey respondents said yes.
Asked which of the three premium brands are seeing the most negative pressure, about 40% named Marlboro specifically, and another 40% cited Camel or other Reynolds' brands such as Winston and Salem,
"As marketing restrictions become stronger the pack becomes the best marketing tool," Hammond says. "When the words come off the pack, the industry relies on colors to a greater extent then they used to."
For example, Pall Mall recently removed descriptors like "full flavor" and "light," relying entirely on the color of the pack and the names of colors to identify each flavor.
"Of course, brands have always used colors," Hammond says. "The so called strengths of brands are aligned with the strengths of colors, and many smokers use colors as an indicator of risk. For example, red is perceived to be stronger than blue."
In other words, as the flavors get "lighter," so the do the colors. . . .
"Orange is a very interesting choice," Bansal-Travers says. "No other brand I can think of uses orange as a cigarette pack color, but orange is certainly the lightest that PM uses, creating a spectrum of color and trying to equate that with the spectrum of risk."
Primary design changes: Flavor descriptors, such as "Filter" and "Light," have been dropped, replaced with the names of colors.
Secondary design changes: The phrase "Famous American Cigarettes" has been moved to the bottom. While the logo and Latin phrases "Per aspera ad astra" ("Through hardships to the stars") and "In hoc signo vinces" ("By this sign you shall conquer") remain, the phrases "KING SIZE BOX" and "Wherever particular people congregate" have been removed from the front of the boxes.
For its Salem brand, manufacturer RJ Reynolds has changed the coloring of the packs and the descriptor terms.
Falling Marlboro sales and the continued strength of the US dollar have resulted in a 14 per cent decline in third-quarter earnings at Philip Morris International.
The group, which was spun off from Altria last year and generates all of its sales outside the the US, said net earnings for the three months to end of September was $1.8bn, or 93 cents a share, down from $2.1bn, or $1.01, the year before.
The weak economy and ever increasing excise taxes in many European markets have continued to put pressure on sales of its flagship premium Marlboro brand, which fell 4.3 per cent to 76.9bn units during the quarter.
The is the third consecutive quarterly decline suffered by Marlboro and underscores how cash-strapped smokers are turning their back on higher priced cigarettes as the recession bites.
Altria Group Inc., the largest U.S. tobacco company, reported third-quarter profit rose 1.7 percent, helped by its acquisition of snuff maker UST in January and higher prices for cigars.
Net income increased to $882 million, or 42 cents a share, from $867 million, or 42 cents, a year earlier, the Richmond, Virginia-based company said today in a Business Wire statement. Excluding some items, adjusted earnings were 48 cents a share, beating the 47-cent average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Earnings from snuff brands Copenhagen and Skoal as well as Black & Mild cigars countered a 16.4 percent decline in cigarette shipments after the U.S. government increased taxes by 62 cents a pack April 1.
In this case, it is not merely the risk of cancer of which the plaintiffs have notice, but the substantial increase in the risk of cancer, as reflected in their complaint. Because the harm involves subclinical changes that only will be discovered by a physician, notice most likely will take the form of advice by a physician, together with a recommendation for diagnostic testing conformably with the medical standard of care. In short, the statute begins to run when (1) there is a physiological change resulting in a substantial increase in the risk of cancer, and (2) that increase, under the standard of care, triggers the need for available diagnostic testing that has been accepted in the medical community as an efficacious method of lung cancer screening or surveillance.
As previously discussed, medical monitoring expense is the plaintiffs' only arguably provable damages. They could not have sued for pain and suffering or lost earning capacity. This is not a case where plaintiffs recovered damages for pain and suffering, lost earning capacity, but only some medical expenses based on existing medical technology. These plaintiffs, or so they allege, had absolutely no remedy until LDCT technology appeared. If they can establish these circumstances, which are unusual and perhaps unique to medical monitoring claims, then their claims are timely. This is a question that cannot be resolved on the record before us; it must be resolved on a motion for summary judgment or, if genuine issues of material fact remain, by a jury. The plaintiffs also must show that the standard of care of the reasonable physician did not call for monitoring of any precancerous condition prior to the statute of limitations period, not just that the technology at that time was less effective for monitoring.
We answer the second certified question in the negative, subject to determination as we have outlined it.