Litigation
Dec. 18, 2002
Tobacco Giant Criticizes Opposition's Tactics
LOS ANGELES - In an attempt to toss out the largest punitive damages verdict in U.S. history, attorneys for Philip Morris Inc. will argue today that the plaintiff's comparison of the tobacco company to terrorist Osama bin Laden, among other things, angered the Los Angeles jury, encouraging them to award $28 billion in punitive damages to a dying Newport Beach woman.
Within minutes of attorney Michael Piuze's Oct. 2 closing arguments, Philip Morris' conduct was compared to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and bin Laden, implying that the corporation was a drug dealer, money launderer and the devil, according to court papers filed by the tobacco company's attorneys.
Piuze also compared his client's case to the Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing corporate scandals.
"Events like Sept. 11 and figures like Osama bin Laden have no bearing on this case and reference to them can serve only to arouse passion and prejudice among jurors," the tobacco company contended in its motion for a new trial. "Such remarks had their intended effect - the jury decided the case based on anger, rather than the evidence, and denied Philip Morris its constitutional right to a trial by impartial jurors."
In his opposition papers, Piuze said attorneys for Phillip Morris never objected to his comments during closing arguments and "apart from the utter waiver of such objections, there is nothing to the complaint."
"Counsel did not equate Philip Morris' conduct with that of the Sept. 11 terrorists," Piuze contended in court papers. "Rather, Sept. 11 was merely one of two mass disasters he selected to illustrate in concrete terms the death toll from tobacco use at opposite ends of the relevant historical timeline."
In October, jurors awarded 64-year-old Betty Bullock $28 billion in punitive damages in her lawsuit against the tobacco giant. The jury awarded her $850,000 in compensatory damages the week before.
The two sides will argue today before Judge Warren Ettinger whether a new trial should be granted, or alternatively a reduction in the punitive damages verdict.
This is the second time Piuze and Philip Morris will argue that a jury's verdict is too high in a tobacco product liability lawsuit.
Last year, Judge Charles W. McCoy reduced a then-record-setting $3 billion in punitive damages to $100 million in a case against Philip Morris filed by a lung and brain cancer patient, who has since died.
Richard Boeken's claims against the tobacco company paralleled those of Bullock's.
The 64-year-old grandmother alleged that Philip Morris was responsible for her 50-year habit by using advertising that suggested smoking was glamorous and cool when she was a teen. Bullock v. Philip Morris, BC249171 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed April 24, 2001).
She also claimed Philip Morris concocted a decades-long fraud scheme in which it stated several times there was no link between lung cancer and smoking, despite some studies that indicated otherwise.
Philip Morris' attorneys, Maurice A. Leiter and Peter K. Bleakley of the Los Angeles firm Arnold & Porter, claimed the tobacco company's due process rights were violated because of statements made by Piuze during closing arguments.
Among them, Piuze encouraged jurors to award damages that were too high and linked Bullock's allegations against Philip Morris to the 28,000 tobacco-related deaths in California over a 40-year span.
"Counsel's '28,000-deaths-for-every-one-lawsuit' formula effectively asked the jury to disregard the reasonable relationship requirement and instead measure punitive damages - in this one case - in terms of 28,000 unrelated deaths," Philip Morris claimed in court papers.
After the trial, some jurors told reporters they calculated the enormous damage award by using the number of Californians who died from smoking but were unable to sue.
Philip Morris also said the ratio between the punitive damages and compensatory damages in the Bullock case are "a mind-boggling 33,000-to-1."
The ratio is 10,000 greater than "ratios found in statutes that provide the common law roots for punitive damages," Philip Morris contended.
But Piuze said that the punitive damages award is fair when compared to Philip Morris' fraudulent conduct over the years.
"[Piuze] merely asked the jury to award an amount that would partially disgorge the $100 billion in illicit profits receives by Philip Morris on account of its fraud scheme, and his argument was well grounded in both fact and law," the opposition papers state. "The size of the punitive damages award requested was only large because the illicit profits from Philip Morris' fraud scheme, and the reprehensibility of that scheme, are so large."
Martin Bergn
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