Cigarette maker Philip Morris USA must pay $8 million to the Cooper City widow and son of a chain smoker whose 1997 death from lung cancer was the result of his smoking addiction, a Broward jury decided Wednesday.
Philip Morris has vowed to appeal the verdict in the closely watched case.
Locksmith Stuart Hess smoked up to two packs a day for 40 years before he died at age 55. His widow, Elaine, and son, David, sued Philip Morris -- maker of the Benson & Hedges preferred by Stuart Hess -- for concealing the health effects and addictive nature of cigarettes.
The six-member jury decided after about nine hours of deliberations over two days that Philip Morris should pay $5 million in punitive damages, finding that the nation's largest cigarette maker showed a reckless disregard for Stuart Hess' safety. Jurors declined to speak to the media following the verdict.
The verdict included $2 million in compensatory damages for Elaine Hess, 63, for the loss of her husband and pain and suffering. Her son David, 34, received $1 million in compensatory damages.
"I just really hope that this can help all the thousands of other families who have also suffered," a tearful Elaine Hess said. Asked for her thoughts about her husband of 32 years, she responded, "To quote my son, we represented him well, and we feel good about that."
Said Kenneth Reilly, Philip Morris' lawyer: "We'll defend this vigorously, just like we will all other cases, and anticipate a positive outcome on appeal."
In assigning fault for Stuart Hess' death, the jury found him 58 percent responsible and Philip Morris 42 percent responsible. However, because the jury found that Philip Morris intentionally omitted information that contributed to Stuart Hess' death, the law says fault can't be apportioned, so the Hesses are entitled to full damages.
Philip Morris intends to challenge the verdict by asking Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey E. Streitfeld to eliminate the punitive damage award and to reduce the total compensatory damages to about $1.3 million by apportioning fault.
The Hesses had asked the jury to award them up to $131 million in damages. Gary Paige, a lawyer for the Hesses, was pleased with the verdict despite the amount being far less than they had sought.
'FAIR RESULT'
"This was a fair result," Paige said. "This has never been about money. It took a lot of courage to bring this case."
The case and about 8,000 others that have been filed around the state are an offshoot of a 1994 class-action lawsuit brought by Dr. Howard Engle, a Miami Beach pediatrician. Engle claimed tobacco firms intentionally addicted smokers. The Hess case was the first of the 8,000 to go to trial. The class, estimated at more than 500,000 people, was awarded more than $145 billion in punitive damages by a Miami-Dade jury in 2000. The award, the largest in a civil case in U.S. history, was overturned by the Florida Supreme Court in 2006. The court ruled that smokers must prove in individual cases that cigarettes caused their illness.
Even though the court tossed the award, it let stand key findings that can be used against cigarette makers in the 8,000 individual cases.
In the Hess case, jurors learned that Philip Morris sold cigarettes that were "defective and unreasonably dangerous" and that it negligently failed to exercise care.
After the verdict, Reilly said applying the findings from the Engle case was unconstitutional because they had no direct connection with Stuart Hess.
During the trial, Reilly told jurors Stuart Hess was an educated man who had to have known the dangers of smoking as far back as the late 1950s when he took up the habit as a teenager.
Smoking was a lifestyle choice for Stuart Hess, Reilly argued. Hess chose to ignore the advice of family and doctors and opted not to quit.
Hess tried various means to quit smoking, including hypnosis and Nicorette gum, but failed.
A TEMPLATE
The Hess case won't affect the other 8,000 cases filed against tobacco companies. Nevertheless, it's expected to serve as a template for the about 360 cases that follow in Broward. Jury selection in the second Broward case started Wednesday morning.
"We've paved the road for other litigants to come and seek justice," said Alex Alvarez, a lawyer for the Hesses. To see more of The Miami Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.herald.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Miami Herald Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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