It is the largest judgment against a cigarette maker in a lawsuit brought by an individual. Philip Morris has vowed to appeal and the award is likely to be greatly reduced, if not reversed, legal experts say. The judgment could trigger a flood of lawsuits. It's going to happen again. They should get used to it.
Lawyers read big verdicts as symbols that jurors can get angry about a certain thing.
When I started writing about tobacco cases in 1984, the industry was thought to be impregnable. Societal attitudes toward smoking have gone from complete acceptance to skepticism to concern to anger. Deborah Hensler, a professor at Stanford Law School, said she is not convinced that Wednesday's verdict will lead to more tobacco suits, but it could lead to higher jury awards. But Donald Hildre, an attorney working on a pending California class-action tobacco case, predicted the verdict will have little lasting impact because it won't hold up on appeal. A smoker for 40 years, Boeken, of Topanga, Calif., has been given six months or a year to live.