$150M award overturned in smoking case
An Oregon appeals court has overturned $150 million in punitive damages against Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA and sent the case back to a lower court to reconsider the award.
The ruling came in a suit filed by the husband of a woman who died of cancer related to smoking, according to the complaint. The decision Wednesday upheld $169,000 in actual damages for the estate of Michelle Schwarz, who died of lung cancer in 1999, but reversed the punitive damages, which were previously reduced to $100 million by the trial judge.
"The environment is improving, with the number of pending individual tobacco suits crashing down," said Thomas Russo, who oversees almost $3 billion at Lancaster, Pa.-based Gardner Russo & Gardner, including about 3.7 million Altria shares on Dec. 31. "It would take a lot to get the trial bar back on their saddle in this area."
