Why I will quit running and start smoking...

To bad she won'ta live long enough to enjoy any of it...

You mean smoking is bad for you?

Damn. They should put a warning on the package or something.

I'm a lawyer. The story that you WON'T see in the press is the one where the judge and/or appellate court cuts the award to less than 1% of that amount. There was a case here locally where the jury awarded $50 million in punitives against Wal-Mart. It got tons of headlines. When it was all said it done, 1t was under $600,000.

Don't believe everything you see in the press about these cases. They only report the weird ones.

Zatopek,

What kind of law do you practice? The fact that the Supreme Court of the United States has established precedent that outrageous punitive damage cases are reduced on appeal DOES NOT make the initial verdict, or reduced verdict, for that matter, any more palatable.

There was a case of a Dr. who bought a Beemer, a beemer that had been repainted, not knowing of course that BMW had made a habit of repainting BMW's damaged in intercontinental transit. He was awarded a few 100 million dollars before that was reduced on appeal.

I would venture to guess that most runners are anti-plaintiff's bar for the following reason: to accomplish anything as a runner, you have to work hard, damn hard, be disciplined, and hold yourself to a high degree of accountability. You can be a stud football player with god given talent. Basketball (see Allen Iverson). Baseball (do I even need to start with the examples? show me one IN shape). Same with hockey.

Running is a sport where talent will only take you so far. That's why this sport is so beautiful. You, and you alone, are ultimately responsible for how much you achieve, and how much you achieve is a direct correlation of how hard you work. We live, however, in a country where no one is willing to take responsibilities for their own actions anymore. Dad gets hammered and drives drunk. It's the bar's fault. Woman spill's coffee on her lap, its McDonald's fault (please, save the "McDonalds was warned its coffee was too hot routine". In my house, we make coffee with boiling water. Boiling water causes 3rd degree burns. Flight attendants use coffee, are trained to use coffee "AS A WEAPON TO CALM UNRULY PASSENGERS".).

Anyway, juries look at lawsuits as lotteries. Poor stupid old bitch has cancer, rich company can afford to pay. That's not the issue, regardless of whether it is reduced on appeal. Same reason folks are leaving the medical profession in drove. Bottom line: PI attornies are scum.

You know, the top level baseball, basketball, hockey, football players mostly spend just as much or more time than a runner training for their sport each day. You act like they pick up a ball and are in the professionals.

Mrs Evil: 28 hundred dollars!

I M Evil PHD: 28 thousand dollars!

Miss Evil: 280 thousand dollars!

Dr Evil DVM: 2.8 million dollars!

Sir Evil: 28 million dollars

Dr Evil MD: 280 million dollars!

Dr Evil: enough of this freakin game, already! Twenty- Eight BILLLLLLLLION dollars!

One percent of 28 billion comes out to 280,000,000. That's two hundred eight million dollars.

from MSNBC ?Testimony during the trial showed that Ms. Bullock was aware of the health risks of smoking and was warned repeatedly of those risks by her doctors over four decades, and her daughter also urged her to quit. Her response: ?I am an adult, this is my business.?

If they award one dollar it is too much. The saddest part is that a jury of twelve ostensibly intelligent people somehow believe this idiot deserves a even penny for her suffering.

Oops, I meant two hundred eighty million, not two hundred eight million

My mom smoked 2 packs a day. I remember as a 6 year old begging her not to smoke. She died from lung cancer when I was a teenager. I was very close to my mom and miss her dearly, but she knew the risks.

"Average_Joe", here are comments from 2 jurors (reported by Dow Jones)

>Frank Guzman, a Pasadena resident who sat on the jury, said that jurors over

>the past two days debated a range of possible punitive damages from $5 billion

>to $100 billion.

> The jurors figured that with 28,000 people in the U.S. dying annually from

>cancer caused by cigarette smoking, Philip Morris should pay punitive damages

>of $1 million each. "Those are the people who never had a chance to come to

>the trial," Guzman said.

> Thaddeus Smith, also of Pasadena, but who was an alternate juror, said the

>one woman juror who voted against the $28 billion verdict believed that Philip

>Morris should be held accountable for punitive damages far less than the $5

>billion that was the bottom of the range considered.

> "The tobacco industry defrauded the country for years," he said.

The presence of this level of addlement shakes my confidence in the future of humanity.

Here is some light reading to take your minds off of the stupidity of jurors.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry/4069054.htm

My brother-in-law's dad just died from lung disease. The doctors said that by the end of his life his lungs had the consistency of tissue paper because of the abuse he had heaped on them from smoking. He of course said to the end it wasn't because of smoking, it was because of the metal shop he had worked in all of his life. Besides, he said, smoking was one of the few "pleasures" he got from life. I'm not quite sure, but I think he was in his early 60's. The family is of course devistated, mourning someone who basically lived in denial his whole life. Very sad.

Oh... the usual rounds of "Plaintiff's lawyers are greedy scum, jurors are dumb" routine. I think there was a thread on this with probably the same people saying the same things a year ago. People always seem to forget that the point of "punitive" damages is to "punish." The measurement of what constitutes sufficeint punishment takes into account the size of corporation and teh extent of the harm caused. Its been pretty clearly established that the tobacco companies shamelesly lied for many years about their own research regarding the dangers of tobacco, etc.

Since I'm guessing that most of the posters on this board don't disagree that the tobacco companies engaged in fraud, I'm wondering whether you feel that it doesn't matter. Should they not be punished? Or do you have your own proposal on the best way to punish them?

If your point is that because people understand that smoking can cause cancer, teh tobacco companies therefore can do and say whatever they want without any accountability, I respectfully disagree.

I also think that the type of broad-brush attacks on plaintiffs' lawyers is silly. Any reasonable person should understand that plaintiff's suits are a check on corporate abuse. Everybody loves to read a newspaper artcile about some case soemwhere they know little about and then declare that teh system is absurd, PI lawyers are scum, etc., but this is really not a very nuanced way of looking at the legal system. There are certainly abuses and runaway verdicts, but pointing to one that you personally don't agree with (when you didn't sit there listening to teh evidence) and then engaging in the usual harangue doesn't advance the discussion in any way.

Who says we (non-smokers) have to take up smoking to ride this gravy train? Hasn't second hand smoke been proven to cause every sort of effect that first hand puffing does? Isn't that litigation just waiting to happen (or has it already?)

Tongue planted in cheek, but only partially.

I suppose that the facts presented in the trial clearly established that a third of Philip Morris's resources were directed toward perpetrating a fraud, because the punitive damages represent one-third of the entire company's value (as of Thursday anyway).

NYer,

No. I do not feel the tobacco companies should be punished. There have been warning labels on tobacco products for at least 20+ years. It has also been shown that the damage caused by smoking IS reversible. Therefore, if smokers would just read the warning and stop smoking (!), they could have avoided their predicament.

In addition, where does the punishment game stop? Should we "punish" MacDonalds and Burger King for knowingly selling super high-fat foods that lead to many deaths? Perhaps we should sue booz companies for deceiving us, too.

It's about FREEDOM. In America, we have the choice to purchase whatever (legal) products we want and therefore we have the freedom of harming ourselves.

If someone honestly believes that the tobacco companies have done nothing wrong and shouldn't be punished, period, then I respect your opinion and we simply disagree. In addition to lying about the results of their own research, they added chemical additives to cigarettes that made them more addictive and lied about it, and they marketed their product to children. I think that they are definitely deserving of punishment.

As for JAM's comment on what is the proper measure of monetary damages that sufficiently punishes a company, I don't think its tied to any particular proportion of harm caused, but is more a function of what it takes to have an impact on the offender. What this number is, I have no idea, as I'm not familiar with the company's books.

28 billion is no doubt a lot of money and I'm sure it will be reduced, but big numbers don't mean that the jury was wrong.

NYer,

I "honestly believe" that tobacco products have had a warning label on them for so long that the consumer should be responsible for the consequences of their actions. The labels basically tell the consumer "If you smoke this, you will get sick." I might understand if there wasn't adequate warning, but after 20+ years of warnings, the tobacco companies should no longer be liable.

Again, where does it stop? Should we initiate lawsuits against fast-food companies to punish them? I find McDonald's french fries very addictive...

p.s. I don't have anything against lawyers.