Jump to full article: The Washington Post, 2009-03-31
Author: Robert Barnes Washington Post Staff Writer
Intro: The Supreme Court today dealt a blow to Philip Morris, saying it would not decide the cigarette-maker's challenge of a punitive damages award brought by the widow of a longtime smoker that now is worth nearly $150 million.
The court's decision, announced in a one-sentence order, was a surprising and anticlimactic ending to a case that has bounded back and forth through the judicial system for nearly a decade. When an Oregon jury awarded Mayola Williams nearly $80 million following the death of her husband Jesse, it was the largest award of its kind.
Even though the justices have strongly implied that the award was too large and twice sent the case back west, the Oregon Supreme Court found reasons to leave it as it was. After the Oregon justices declined to change its decision for a second time, lawyers for Philip Morris petitioned the high court to "vindicate" its authority.
Instead, the court today said it should not have accepted the case for a third time, and in the language of the court, dismissed the case as "improvidently granted."
Because the case was argued in early December and the court issued its decision only today, it suggests the justices had trouble coming together on how to solve the legal issues raised. . . .
But the justices said that maybe the Oregon court had a point, after all.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who wrote the court's 2007 decision in the case, said he thought at first that Oregon was giving the court the "runaround." But after studying the case more closely, he said, "I'm not sure that I think that now."
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