Tobacco.org

ASH PR: Supreme Court OKs Large Punitive Damages for Smokers 

"The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to review a decision awarding punitive damages of $50 million to the widow of a smoker, in addition to an award of $5.5 million in punitive damages, opens the door to even higher awards of punitive damages in the future, and may signal that the Court would tolerate higher punitive damages in cigarette death cases than in others," says public interest law professor John Banzhaf of Action on Smoking and Health.

In a 2003 decision involving State Farm, the Supreme Court ruled that the award of punitive damages is limited . . .

"There's simply no comparison between insurance company business wrongdoing in settling claims, and the grossly fraudulent conduct of tobacco companies which lead to millions of premature and often very painful deaths," says Banzhaf, referring to the State Farm ruling. "Thus the ordinary rules which may limit the ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages in ordinary commercial transaction cases may not be relevant when companies deliberately kill people," he said.

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