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Philip Morris Must Pay Smoker Almost $300 Million, Jury Says  

Altria Group Inc.’s Philip Morris USA, the largest U.S. tobacco company, lost a $300 million jury verdict in a lawsuit brought by a former smoker in Florida who suffers from emphysema.

The Broward Circuit Court jury yesterday awarded Cindy Naugle $56.6 million in compensatory damages and $244 million in punitive damages, said her lawyer, Robert W. Kelley, in a phone interview . . .

Altria, based in Richmond, Virginia, said it will seek “further review” of the verdict.

“From the beginning, this case was marked by a fundamentally unfair and unconstitutional trial plan that allowed the jury to rely on findings by a prior jury,” Murray Garnick, associate general counsel for Altria, said in a statement. The “verdict was the result of numerous erroneous rulings by the trial judge,” he said.

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