A 40-a-day smoker with incurable lung and brain cancer was awarded a record $3 billion by a US jury that ruled Philip Morris did not properly warn him of the risks of smoking.
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The award was the largest individual punitive damages award ever against a cigarette maker and set off alarm bells in an industry facing similar suits.
Philip Morris vowed to try to get the award thrown out and, failing that, appeal the decision. It called the award "outrageous" and said the plaintiff, Mr Richard Boeken, had ignored health warnings by smoking two packs of Marlboro cigarettes a day for more than 40 years.
But a Los Angeles Superior Court jury found against the tobacco giant for fraud, negligence and making a defective product.
The jury awarded $3 billion in punitive damages and $5.5 million in compensatory damages to Mr Boeken, a securities and oil broker whose lung cancer has spread to his brain.
Philip Morris lawyers argued Mr Boeken knew of the risks of smoking because of the health warnings printed on the cigarette packs but continued to smoke anyway.
"The verdict is outrageous and holds our legal system up to ridicule," associate general counsel for Philip Morris Mr William Ohlemeyer said in a statement.
The tobacco company argued the jury had been given improper instructions, was prevented from hearing key evidence and that the 600-1 ratio of punitive to compensatory damages awarded by the jury was "wildly out of line" with legal precedent, an issue it said an appellate court would consider.
But jurors, who voted 10-2 for the record damages, said they had no sympathy for Philip Morris's arguments.
"There were too many things they kept trying to cover up, instead of being honest about their product," said Ms Denise Key, a juror who said she had smoked for 15 years. "This man's life is over - $3 billion doesn't even begin to cover it."
Stock in Philip Morris dropped in after-hours trade in reaction to the award, falling to $48.25 from a regular-session close of $50 on the New York Stock Exchange.