|
Contact:
or Dick Daynard e-mail to media @ tplp.org
November 25, 2003
Missouri jury Holds Philip Morris and Brown and
In a stunning defeat in the back yard of the tobacco industry’s most notorious defense firms, a throat cancer survivor and his are awarded $1.3 million on November 4, 2003.
Background and Commentary on the verdict
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF JACKSON COUNTY, MISSOURI MICHAEL S.
THOMPSON and v. BROWN AND
WILLIAMSON TOBACCO CORPORATION and INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI
Michael Thompson was born in 1950. While he occasionally sneaked an occasional cigarette around age 13, he did not smoke regularly until he enlisted in the military. After his service in Vietnam, he was a heavy and addicted smoker. The brand of cigarette he smoked then was Marlboro, made by Philip Morris.
He later married, had four children and worked as a security director.
During the 1990s, Mr. Thompson switched to GPC cigarettes, manufactured by Brown & Williamson Tobacco. Co.
In 1997, Mr. Thompson came down with a sore throat that wouldn't go away. After visiting his doctor, he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. His voice box and throat were surgically removed. Then, he was treated with a course of chemotherapy. Mr. Thompson now must breathe through a hole in his neck and presses a mechanical device to his reconstructed throat to speak.
Mr. Thompson and his wife are by Kenneth B. McClain, Scott B. Hall and Donald C. Loudon of the Independence, Missouri law firm of Humphrey, Farrington & McClain. They asserted claims based on strict liability, negligence, fraudulent concealment, conspiracy and loss of consortium
Mr. Thompson's attorneys argued that his cigarette smoking caused his cancer. Meanwhile, the defendants' lawyers argued that Mr. Thompson's rare form of cancer was caused by something other than smoking. [This has become know as the tobacco industry's “ABC defense” in product liability cases -- Anything But Cigarettes]. The companies' lawyers also argued that Mr. Thompson knew smoking was hazardous but smoked anyway until he became ill in the 1990s.
The trial began on October 6, 2003 and ended when the jury returned its verdict on November 4, 2003. The award breaks down as follows: $800,000 in compensatory damages to Mr. Thompson and $500,000 for his wife for loss of companionship. The trial was held in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri in Independence and presided over by Judge J.D. Williamson. Nine of the twelve jurors had to agree on the verdict.
Thompson's initial compensatory damage award was set at $1.6 million by the jury. However, Philip Morris and Brown and Williamson are responsible only for $800,000 (50%) because the jury found Mr. Thompson was 50%responsible for his illness. Under the Missouri law of comparative negligence, if a jury finds that a plaintiff shares responsibility, the award is reduced by the amount of responsibility. Here Philip Morris is 40% responsible, Brown and Williamson is 10% responsible, and Mr. Thompson himself was found to be 50% responsible. Richard A. Daynard, a professor of Law at Northeastern University and Chair of the Tobacco Products Liability Project noted at this is the first such verdict in Missouri: “This is important because it emphasizes that the liability of the tobacco industry isn't limited to any part of the country. The industry has claimed it's a West Coast phenomenon or a Florida phenomenon. This shows any place the jury hears the facts they are likely to find the tobacco companies liable.”
See the Jury's Verdict Form (pdf)
-- ## -- |