Jury Awards $81 Million to Oregon Smoker's Family
04/01/99
On March 30th, a state jury in Portland, Oregon, ordered Philip Morris to pay $81 million to the family of a man who smoked Marlboro cigarettes for four decades before he died.
The jury awarded $79.5 million in punitive damages, and $1.6 million in compensatory damages to the family of Jesse Williams, who died in 1997, five month after he was diagnosed with lung cancer. This is the largest verdict ever against a tobacco company and the second major courtroom defeat for the industry in two months. Last month, a San Francisco jury awarded $51.5 million in another case against Philip Morris. The tobacco company plans to appeal both the verdicts.
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