Widow takes husband's dying wish to Supreme Court

By Bill Mears
CNN Washington Bureau

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Juries can punish a tobacco company by awarding damages to a smoker's widow but not to other smokers, a lawyer for Philip Morris USA argued Tuesday before the Supreme Court.

Seeking to overturn an Oregon jury's $79.5 million punitive damage award, attorney Andrew Frey argued that the family of a longtime smoker deserved compensation based only on individual harm, not harm to the public at large.

"Confine the jury to its proper domain, and its domain is the case before it," Frey told the justices. "Other people can bring their own lawsuits."

The justices seemed torn over how to apply past precedents limiting punitive damages against Big Tobacco and other deep-pocketed corporations in product-liability cases to the case of custodian Jessie Williams.

The plaintiff's husband, Jessie Williams, smoked up to three packs of cigarettes a day for 47 years and died of lung cancer in 1997.

Court records show Williams never believed claims that cigarettes were a health danger, until he contracted cancer. His widow, Mayola, testified Williams told her: "Those darn cigarette people finally did it. They were lying all the time."

Honoring a dying wish

Plaintiff Mayola Williams, who appeared Tuesday at the high court with her family, sued Philip Morris, manufacturer of the popular Marlboro brand. The company is now part of the Altria Group.

She said she was pursuing the case all the way to the Supreme Court, at her husband's dying wish.

"I'm just praying for justice," she said, sitting in a wheelchair outside the court building.

But a majority of the justices appeared ready to throw the case back to state courts for a second time without ruling on its merits.

Several justices appeared torn over whether the Williams case followed recent high court precedent that defendants cannot be punished for harm done to others, when only one person was suing.

A jury in 1999 found Williams and Philip Morris equally at fault for the smoking-related illnesses suffered by the plaintiff. It awarded $800,000 in compensatory damages, and almost 100 times that -- $79.5 million -- in punitive damages.

Jurors concluded the company engaged in fraud and negligence affecting a large number of people over five decades.

The trial judge reduced the punitive damages to $32 million, but higher state courts restored the award to the original amount. Much of the money, under state law, is to go to a special fund to help victims of crime.

In Tuesday's arguments, Williams' attorney, Robert Peck, said the tobacco company "was engaged in a massive, market-driven fraud ... to deceive customers." And he said the jury properly took "the harm suffered by others into account."

That brought sharp reaction from several on the bench. "On the other hand, you cannot punish the defendant (Philip Morris) for those harms, particularly in a case where the defendant might have defense available with respect to those others" when deciding punitive damages, said Chief Justice John Roberts.

"It's a fine line, but the reason it's a fine line is because of our prior cases, and it tried to draw the distinction between assessing responsibility and punishing for harm to others," he said.

"Punitive damages do not punish harm, they punish conduct," replied Peck. "The greater the wrong should receive greater punishment."

Appeals continue

The punitive award has yet to be paid, pending outcome of the legal appeals.

The high court previously sent the case back to the Oregon Supreme Court, which upheld its earlier judgment. The Oregon court noted, "Philip Morris's conduct here was extraordinarily reprehensible, by any measure of which we are aware. It put a significant number of victims at profound risk for an extended period of time."

Philip Morris and other tobacco makers have been the subject of lengthy and high-profile class-action lawsuits over their marketing strategy, and allegations they hid studies showing the health risks of smoking for decades. Consumer rights advocates argue such large punitive damages are necessary as a deterrent and retribution when corporate conduct is judged excessive or extreme.

In 2003, the high court ruled a $145 million punitive damages award against State Farm Insurance was excessive. The opinion stated, "Courts must ensure that the measure of punishment is both reasonable and proportionate to the amount of harm" someone suffers.

A ruling in the Williams case is expected within a few months.

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