FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Philip Morris was ordered by a jury Wednesday to pay $8 million in damages to the widow of a smoker who died of lung cancer in a case that could set a standard for some 8,000 similar Florida lawsuits.
The six jurors deliberated for two days before returning the award for Elaine Hess, 63, whose husband, Stuart, died in 1997 at age 55 after decades as a chain smoker. The award amounts to $3 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages against Richmond, Va.-based Philip Morris USA, a unit of Altria Group Inc.
“It wasn’t about the money from the beginning,” Hess said after the verdict. “It was about doing the right thing. ”
The Hess case was the first to go to trial since the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 voided a $145 billion class-action jury award, by far the highest punitive damage award in U.S. history. The court said each case had to be decided individually, but it let stand that jury’s findings that tobacco companies knowingly sold dangerous products and hid risks from the public.
