punitive damages
Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. ...
, and ordered a lower court to reconsider its damages awards on that basis.
Trial court decision
Mayola Williams, the widow of Jesse D. Williams, who died of smoking-related
lung cancer
Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...
in 1997, sued
Philip Morris USA
Philip Morris USA is the American tobacco division of the American tobacco corporation Altria Group.
History Creation
The company's namesake Philip Morris was born in Whitechapel, United Kingdom in 1835, the son of a recent immigrant from G ...
, a cigarette manufacturer, for fraud based on Philip Morris advertisements and sponsored studies that made cigarettes seem less dangerous than they actually were. At
trial
In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal ...
in 1999, the jury found for Williams and awarded her $821,485.50 in
compensatory damages
At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...
and $79.5 million in punitive damages. At that time, the verdict was the largest against a tobacco company. The trial court found that the compensatory damages exceeded the state cap and the punitive damages were "grossly excessive". It reduced the respective amounts to $521,485.50 and $32 million.
Appeals
On appeal, the
Oregon Court of Appeals
The Oregon Court of Appeals is the state intermediate Court of Appeals, appellate court in the US state of Oregon. Part of the Oregon Judicial Department, it has thirteen judges and is located in Salem, Oregon, Salem. Except for death penalty cas ...
reversed and reinstated the $79.5 million judgment. Following the "guideposts" established in '' BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore'', the Court of Appeals examined whether the punitive damages were appropriate based on (1) the degree of reprehensibility of the conduct, (2) the disparity between the actual harm and the punitive damages, and (3) the difference between the punitive damages and civil penalties allowed in similar cases. While determining the reprehensibility of Philip Morris's actions, the court considered the length of the misinformation campaign and the number of people it had reached, concluding that its actions were so reprehensible that they justified punitive damages 97 times greater than the actual damages. The
Oregon Supreme Court
The Oregon Supreme Court (OSC) is the highest state court in the U.S. state of Oregon. The only court that may reverse or modify a decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is the Supreme Court of the United States.Supreme Court of the United States then granted '' certiorari'', and in the 2007 decision
vacated
A vacated judgment (also known as vacatur relief) makes a previous legal judgment legally void. A vacated judgment is usually the result of the judgment of an appellate court, which overturns, reverses, or sets aside the judgment of a lower court. ...
the Court of Appeals' judgment, remanding the case to the Oregon Court of Appeals for that court to reconsider the amount of the punitive damages award in light of '' State Farm v. Campbell''.
Later decisions
The Court of Appeals again reinstated the $79.5 million judgment. On appeal, the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed, also holding that the courts can consider evidence of similar conduct to other people in Oregon–even those not party to the lawsuit–when awarding punitive damages. Philip Morris then appealed again to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008, arguing that the Oregon Supreme Court ignored the guidance the U.S. Supreme Court had given as to punitive damages. In March 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court in essence affirmed the lower court decision when it withdrew their writ of ''certiorari''.''Philip Morris USA Inc. v. Williams'', .
Philip Morris then paid Williams $61 million, as under Oregon law the state collects 60% of all punitive awards and places those funds into a compensation fund for crime victims. After Philip Morris paid Williams, it then fought the state over paying the remaining amount in punitive damages to the state, claiming that the tobacco settlement signed by Oregon in 1998 prevented Oregon from collecting. The Oregon Supreme Court again disagreed with Philip Morris in December 2011 and ruled that they had to pay the remaining punitive damages, which after interest then totaled $99 million.
See also
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List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 549
This is a list of all the United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court ca ...
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List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 556
This is a list of all the United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court ca ...
*
List of United States Supreme Court cases
This page serves as an index of lists of United States Supreme Court cases. The United States Supreme Court is the highest federal court of the United States.
By Chief Justice
Court historians and other legal scholars consider each Chief J ...