| Summary |
Plaintiffs have persuaded California juries to issue punitive damages in four consecutive cigarette trials. Next month, the Tobacco Products Liability Project will host a conference in San Francisco for attorneys who are setting their sights on Philip Morris and other cigarette manufacturers featuring Mike Piuze, Madelyn Chaber, Chuck Tauman, and others who have contributed to six plaintiffs' verdicts without a single loss on the West Coast since 1999. . .
Philip Morris employed a new defense strategy in this case. Rather than presenting many expert and fact witnesses, the company only called a single witness in its defense. During the punitive damages phase of the trial, Philip Morris' attorney, Peter Bleakley, essentially told the jury that, while the company might have misbehaved in the past, the company is now so closely monitored that deterrence, in the form of punitive damages, was unnecessary. The jury obviously disagreed.
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