A Miami jury has found Philip Morris liable for $43 million in damages in the cancer death of a woman who smoked Virginia Slims cigarettes for over a decade.
The Sept. 3 verdict in Florida’s 11th Judicial Circuit came during one of hundreds of so-called Engle progeny cases. They date back to a class-action lawsuit that was decertified in 1994, when the state Supreme Court allowed individual tobacco-related product-liability cases to move forward under a common template for jury instructions.
The jury concluded Norma Lipp relied on Philip Morris statements made about their tobacco products that concealed information about the true health dangers and addictive nature of smoking. In turn, the jury found the company liable for $28 million in punitive damages and $15 million in compensatory damages for Lipp’s husband and three children.
Jurors assigned 85% of the fault for Lipp’s lung cancer to Philip Morris USA Inc., with 15% of the blame placed on Lipp herself.
Public health advocates see such large jury awards against tobacco companies as necessary for the companies to take responsibility for their efforts in the past to conceal or omit the dangers of smoking to consumers.
“This verdict clearly shows that Florida juries are still concerned about people, such as Norma Lipp, who died nearly three decades ago, as the result of a conspiracy to hide the dangers of cigarettes from the public dating all the way back to 1953,” Mark Gottlieb, executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law, told the Florida Record in an email.
The awarding of large damages awards against Philip Morris and other tobacco firms indicates a desire to punish companies for their past concealment of information, Gottlieb said.
“This is true for most, if not all, of the hundreds of remaining cases stemming from the Engle class action,” he said.
Defense attorneys had argued that there was evidence that Lipp knew the risks associated from cigarette smoking decades before her death and that her actions were determined largely by personal choice.
Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.