Bittersweet victory for US smokers of lights
by Janelle Lawrence,
2016-03-03 06:08:02.0
ALMOST 200,000 Marlboro Lights smokers will get $25 each plus interest — a fraction of the $600m they had sought from Philip Morris USA — after a Massachusetts judge found they were duped into buying what they thought was a safer cigarette.
The plaintiffs "paid too much for the misrepresented cigarette", but their attorneys failed to prove that they shared similar injuries beyond overpaying, Superior Court Judge Edward Leibensperger wrote in a decision made public on Monday, after 17 years of litigation, ordering Philip Morris to pay $4.94m, plus interest.
Although Marlboro Lights were just as harmful as Marlboro Reds, the judge wrote, "I have no evidential basis for quantifying the actual damages of each class member."
The judge, who reached his ruling after hearing evidence for five weeks during a trial by judge last year, rejected plaintiffs’ attempt to quantify the injury through a questionnaire asking smokers what they would have paid for an imaginary cigarette that was safer.
Tom Urmy, a lawyer with Shapiro Haber & Urmy, said the plaintiffs would appeal against the judge’s decision not to order Philip Morris to give up $68m in pretax profits on sales of Marlboro Lights in Massachusetts.
"The defendant should not be allowed to profit" from a marketing fraud, Urmy says. "It’s not over yet."
With interest, the award increases to $15.1m, according to attorneys involved in the case. The class action lawsuit had 197,000 members.
"The court clearly recognised the evidence didn’t support the outrageous amount sought by plaintiffs," says Murray Garnick, associate general counsel for the tobacco company Altria, which owns the Philip Morris brand.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers once banked on the strategy of going after "light" cigarettes for economic damages.
In the years since the Massachusetts case was filed in November 1998, US courts have narrowed the scope of class action litigation, making it harder to certify classes in personal-injury and economic-damages cases. In a similar case against Philip Morris, the Illinois supreme court last year threw out a $10bn award a judge made in 2003 to buyers of Marlboro Lights.
The relatively tiny award in Monday’s decision is a blow to the plaintiffs, but in addition to the $15.1m they did not come away empty-handed.
The ruling of deceptive marketing adds fuel to several personal-injury lawsuits pending in Massachusetts, says Edward Sweda, senior attorney at the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University’s School of Law. "Plaintiffs’ lawyers will try to rely on this and ask it to be considered by these courts," Sweda says, calling the ruling a "significant victory" in cigarette foes’ battle against tobacco industry marketing.
The US Food and Drug Administration has banned the use of the label "light" on cigarettes since 2010.
Bloomberg
Picture: THINKSTOCK
ALMOST 200,000 Marlboro Lights smokers will get $25 each plus interest — a fraction of the $600m they had sought from Philip Morris USA — after a Massachusetts judge found they were duped into buying what they thought was a safer cigarette.
The plaintiffs "paid too much for the misrepresented cigarette", but their attorneys failed to prove that they shared similar injuries beyond overpaying, Superior Court Judge Edward Leibensperger wrote in a decision made public on Monday, after 17 years of litigation, ordering Philip Morris to pay $4.94m, plus interest.
Although Marlboro Lights were just as harmful as Marlboro Reds, the judge wrote, "I have no evidential basis for quantifying the actual damages of each class member."
The judge, who reached his ruling after hearing evidence for five weeks during a trial by judge last year, rejected plaintiffs’ attempt to quantify the injury through a questionnaire asking smokers what they would have paid for an imaginary cigarette that was safer.
Tom Urmy, a lawyer with Shapiro Haber & Urmy, said the plaintiffs would appeal against the judge’s decision not to order Philip Morris to give up $68m in pretax profits on sales of Marlboro Lights in Massachusetts.
"The defendant should not be allowed to profit" from a marketing fraud, Urmy says. "It’s not over yet."
With interest, the award increases to $15.1m, according to attorneys involved in the case. The class action lawsuit had 197,000 members.
"The court clearly recognised the evidence didn’t support the outrageous amount sought by plaintiffs," says Murray Garnick, associate general counsel for the tobacco company Altria, which owns the Philip Morris brand.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers once banked on the strategy of going after "light" cigarettes for economic damages.
In the years since the Massachusetts case was filed in November 1998, US courts have narrowed the scope of class action litigation, making it harder to certify classes in personal-injury and economic-damages cases. In a similar case against Philip Morris, the Illinois supreme court last year threw out a $10bn award a judge made in 2003 to buyers of Marlboro Lights.
The relatively tiny award in Monday’s decision is a blow to the plaintiffs, but in addition to the $15.1m they did not come away empty-handed.
The ruling of deceptive marketing adds fuel to several personal-injury lawsuits pending in Massachusetts, says Edward Sweda, senior attorney at the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University’s School of Law. "Plaintiffs’ lawyers will try to rely on this and ask it to be considered by these courts," Sweda says, calling the ruling a "significant victory" in cigarette foes’ battle against tobacco industry marketing.
The US Food and Drug Administration has banned the use of the label "light" on cigarettes since 2010.
Bloomberg
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