Jump to full article: Agence France Presse (AFP) (fr), 2005-08-13
Intro: Unsatisfied with legal rulings that spared it from paying billions of dollars in damages, Philip Morris wants the US Supreme Court to snuff out a lung cancer victim's civil suit, a lawyer said.
The international cigarette purveyor has asked a judge for permission to delay paying the dead smoker's wife until the nation's top court has a chance to review the civil suit.
Richard Boeken's civil trial with Philip Morris ended in 2001 with a jury awarding him 5.5 million dollars in compensation and three billion in punitive damages. . . .
"I was trying to get back 2.95 billion dollars which had been ripped away from us," Piuze said of the fight to have the case reviewed.
"When you catch someone committing a major fraud, you punish them for all the other times they got away with it." . . .
"I think that, generally, when it comes to major issues that affect tens of thousands of people, the court system is more inclined to hear what business has to say than what human beings have to say," Piuze said.
"I think that is just the way it was set up."
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