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U.S. justices to review tobacco award  

One can assume that Jesse Williams, a simple man who served in the U.S. Army in the early 1950s and then worked as a janitor in Portland, Oregon, never dreamed his name would be uttered in the United States Supreme Court. But on Monday, the justices agreed to review, for the third time, a case involving the death of Williams, a longtime smoker, from lung cancer. . . .

The Oregon court ruling was "symptomatic of the disregard that some state courts show" for United States Supreme Court precedents that protect "locally unpopular defendants against arbitrary punitive-damages awards," the United States Chamber of Commerce argued in a court filing, according to Bloomberg News.

But Mark Gottlieb, director of the Tobacco Products Liability Project of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, based at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, offered a different perspective. "While the further delay in resolving this case comes as a disappointment to the Williams family, the significance of the Supreme Court's denial of certiorari on the size of the punitive damages gives trial and appellate judges critically important guidance on the limits of punitive damages against cigarette companies," Gottlieb said in a statement.

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