The tobacco company got people on something that was ADDICTIVE(and thus very hard to quit) and harmful to the point of causing death. And they did it before they told anyone about the consequences of smoking.
And they have profitted from it.
AND THEY DID IT INTENTIONALLY!!!
If that doesn’t warrant litigation, not much else should either.
Comon, poeple. Sometimes you have to cross political lines in favor of the facts.
Actually, Nancy, Expert isn’t all that far off. This case, if it’s the one that I think it is, was originally tried in the Multnomah County Circuit court. The jury came back with a multi-billion (that’s with a ‘B’) judgement against Phillip-Morris. If I recall correctly it was to the tune of $9B (though I may be off on the exact figure). The jury’s reasoning was that tobacco companies needed to be taught a lesson.
Thankfully the original figure was struck down but the Oregon Supreme Court’s own disregard for precedent set by SCOTUS is a product of the thinking here on the left coast. For all that we whine about not having a lot of big businesses headquartered here, and for all that we cater to the few we have, the NW is still very Liberal (capital ‘L’ intended) and somewhat anti-business. And for all that we enacted the first physician-assisted suicide law we don’t want to accept that people have the right to determine how to kill themselves without a doctor.
This judgement is out of hand and needs to be reversed. Not everyone in Oregon is an extreme left-winger. Some of us ducks like to stick to the middle of the stream.
For a non-smoker and somebody who hates being around smokers, I’m sure posting a lot in defense of tobacco companies.
TOYB – what about alcohol? It’s addictive and people have been selling it for thousands of years without telling us it can cause liver failure and so forth. What about the legal narcotics and opiates that were sold before we knew everything about them? What about caffiene – which causes heart attacks, migraines and other symptoms?
The fact is people have known for decades that cigarettes are bad for them and still continue to smoke and new smokers come on board every day. The tobacco industry is the only industry in America that is mandated by law to spend a certain amount of money dissuading people from using their products – and yet they still makes billions in profits every year. They are the only industry that has been sued for people not listening to them when they told their consumers their products could kill – and people still smoke.
Alcohol causes millions in damage every year and destroys thousands of lives. Why hasn’t anybody sued Jack Daniels? The furthest up the line we’ve gone is the dram shop. We’ll sue the bar but not the distiller, even though the distiller is the one that made the product that I chose to consume that caused me to ruin my life? This line of reasoning doesn’t take hold with alcohol and it shouldn’t take hold with cigarettes.
People have a natural right to determine how they are going to die. If they want to kill themselves with cigarettes that’s fine. And had these cases been brought about in the early ’80s this conversation would be different, but people have known the dangers of smoking for decades and that’s too much time to say “I didn’t know!” They knew, they knew for decades and they still decided to keep smoking. At that point they took their life into their own hands and they deserve nothing.
It’s called responsibility people – get used to it.
AGREED! lastbat – you said it best and i compliment it with the fact that our society is happy to get lawsuit happy and get all they can get or maybe the lawyers want more money in their pocket. truthfully, i think responsibility needs to be played not the addiction, because any addiction can be fixed!
we are at it again. in fact, what everyone fails to realize is that the us government was in on this as well. they infact had a copy of the recipe for cigarettes and knew back then it was bad for your health. it was documented on the boxes of cigarettes. the 79.5 million is excessive, because what this is going to create and quick run of everyone for more! in fact, people you choose to light up a cigarette just like you chose a drink at the bar. if you went from 1 cigarette to 3 packs a day, is a choice that you made. not phillip morris! he smoked for 40 yrs — why should he get more under the punitive damage? what happens to all those that have gone before? can they up the ante?! NO and this one should be no more than any other. another crazy person that can’t lay claim that it was a choice.
so let’s try something a tad different:
we keep saying that this and that causes cancer. so for giggles: if i decided to eat cheddar cheese (as an example, let’s say that it causes cancer and it’s labeled), does that mean because i still eat it, i can sue the make of that cheddar cheese? um…um… i think not.
we need to stop blaming the industry for choices that we make. the company sure did not say smoke more. smokers can stop. it’s just a matter of saying and choosing to quit.
I’m with you on this one wudchuck. It amazes me that people win lawsuits in this area. For over 30 years cigarettes have said right on the package that they will kill you and are bad for you. You can’t really say the tobacco companies lied when they told you every time you bought a pack that their product will give you lung cancer.
At least the $9B original judgement was tossed and is now down in the millions. I’m hoping it gets overturned again and the Oregon Supreme Court declines to interfere a third time.
I agree – it is ridiculous to expect the tobacco company to pay that kind of money when someone smoked after warnings. It was the before the warnings “secrective hook ’em on nicotene and we’ve got them for life” attitude that should have to pay, but why would anyone even start to smoke after seeing the warnings? Because it was acceptable in society, it was “cool” in society, it was expected. Everyone got hooked, some could quit and some couldn’t. Fortunately now it is not “cool” or acccepted and it is getting better.
My mom died of COPD a few years ago…directly related to years and years of smoking. I should have had my dad hop on the “big tobacco-suit money train”…he’d have it made in the shade. These suits are ridiculous.
While I do not agree with the $79M damage amount, I would generally say ‘what goes around, comes around’ and also ‘you reap what you sow.’
Phillip Morris conducted itself with the utmost contempt for ethics, dignity, compassion, and utter contempt for human life itself. They not only knew that smoking was (extremely) adverse to your health, but they took active steps to cover that fact up, stalled and stalled and stalled again on putting warnings on packaging, not to mention the political lobbying, marketing to children, and all the other insidious actions taken in the name of profit. Cigarettes are supposed to claim their ONE BILLIONTH DEATH worldwide in the near future.
So, in short I really won’t shed any tears if the family of a dead ex-smoker squeezes a hundred million out of Phillip Morris in a bogus lawsuit.
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To the loony east coast bias:
The tobacco company got people on something that was ADDICTIVE(and thus very hard to quit) and harmful to the point of causing death. And they did it before they told anyone about the consequences of smoking.
And they have profitted from it.
AND THEY DID IT INTENTIONALLY!!!
If that doesn’t warrant litigation, not much else should either.
Comon, poeple. Sometimes you have to cross political lines in favor of the facts.
Actually, Nancy, Expert isn’t all that far off. This case, if it’s the one that I think it is, was originally tried in the Multnomah County Circuit court. The jury came back with a multi-billion (that’s with a ‘B’) judgement against Phillip-Morris. If I recall correctly it was to the tune of $9B (though I may be off on the exact figure). The jury’s reasoning was that tobacco companies needed to be taught a lesson.
Thankfully the original figure was struck down but the Oregon Supreme Court’s own disregard for precedent set by SCOTUS is a product of the thinking here on the left coast. For all that we whine about not having a lot of big businesses headquartered here, and for all that we cater to the few we have, the NW is still very Liberal (capital ‘L’ intended) and somewhat anti-business. And for all that we enacted the first physician-assisted suicide law we don’t want to accept that people have the right to determine how to kill themselves without a doctor.
This judgement is out of hand and needs to be reversed. Not everyone in Oregon is an extreme left-winger. Some of us ducks like to stick to the middle of the stream.
For a non-smoker and somebody who hates being around smokers, I’m sure posting a lot in defense of tobacco companies.
TOYB – what about alcohol? It’s addictive and people have been selling it for thousands of years without telling us it can cause liver failure and so forth. What about the legal narcotics and opiates that were sold before we knew everything about them? What about caffiene – which causes heart attacks, migraines and other symptoms?
The fact is people have known for decades that cigarettes are bad for them and still continue to smoke and new smokers come on board every day. The tobacco industry is the only industry in America that is mandated by law to spend a certain amount of money dissuading people from using their products – and yet they still makes billions in profits every year. They are the only industry that has been sued for people not listening to them when they told their consumers their products could kill – and people still smoke.
Alcohol causes millions in damage every year and destroys thousands of lives. Why hasn’t anybody sued Jack Daniels? The furthest up the line we’ve gone is the dram shop. We’ll sue the bar but not the distiller, even though the distiller is the one that made the product that I chose to consume that caused me to ruin my life? This line of reasoning doesn’t take hold with alcohol and it shouldn’t take hold with cigarettes.
People have a natural right to determine how they are going to die. If they want to kill themselves with cigarettes that’s fine. And had these cases been brought about in the early ’80s this conversation would be different, but people have known the dangers of smoking for decades and that’s too much time to say “I didn’t know!” They knew, they knew for decades and they still decided to keep smoking. At that point they took their life into their own hands and they deserve nothing.
It’s called responsibility people – get used to it.
AGREED! lastbat – you said it best and i compliment it with the fact that our society is happy to get lawsuit happy and get all they can get or maybe the lawyers want more money in their pocket. truthfully, i think responsibility needs to be played not the addiction, because any addiction can be fixed!
we are at it again. in fact, what everyone fails to realize is that the us government was in on this as well. they infact had a copy of the recipe for cigarettes and knew back then it was bad for your health. it was documented on the boxes of cigarettes. the 79.5 million is excessive, because what this is going to create and quick run of everyone for more! in fact, people you choose to light up a cigarette just like you chose a drink at the bar. if you went from 1 cigarette to 3 packs a day, is a choice that you made. not phillip morris! he smoked for 40 yrs — why should he get more under the punitive damage? what happens to all those that have gone before? can they up the ante?! NO and this one should be no more than any other. another crazy person that can’t lay claim that it was a choice.
so let’s try something a tad different:
we keep saying that this and that causes cancer. so for giggles: if i decided to eat cheddar cheese (as an example, let’s say that it causes cancer and it’s labeled), does that mean because i still eat it, i can sue the make of that cheddar cheese? um…um… i think not.
we need to stop blaming the industry for choices that we make. the company sure did not say smoke more. smokers can stop. it’s just a matter of saying and choosing to quit.
I’m with you on this one wudchuck. It amazes me that people win lawsuits in this area. For over 30 years cigarettes have said right on the package that they will kill you and are bad for you. You can’t really say the tobacco companies lied when they told you every time you bought a pack that their product will give you lung cancer.
At least the $9B original judgement was tossed and is now down in the millions. I’m hoping it gets overturned again and the Oregon Supreme Court declines to interfere a third time.
And one more thing, it’s not even the smoker that’s making himself look like an idiot, it’s yet another greedy widow/family!
I agree – it is ridiculous to expect the tobacco company to pay that kind of money when someone smoked after warnings. It was the before the warnings “secrective hook ’em on nicotene and we’ve got them for life” attitude that should have to pay, but why would anyone even start to smoke after seeing the warnings? Because it was acceptable in society, it was “cool” in society, it was expected. Everyone got hooked, some could quit and some couldn’t. Fortunately now it is not “cool” or acccepted and it is getting better.
My mom died of COPD a few years ago…directly related to years and years of smoking. I should have had my dad hop on the “big tobacco-suit money train”…he’d have it made in the shade. These suits are ridiculous.
While I do not agree with the $79M damage amount, I would generally say ‘what goes around, comes around’ and also ‘you reap what you sow.’
Phillip Morris conducted itself with the utmost contempt for ethics, dignity, compassion, and utter contempt for human life itself. They not only knew that smoking was (extremely) adverse to your health, but they took active steps to cover that fact up, stalled and stalled and stalled again on putting warnings on packaging, not to mention the political lobbying, marketing to children, and all the other insidious actions taken in the name of profit. Cigarettes are supposed to claim their ONE BILLIONTH DEATH worldwide in the near future.
So, in short I really won’t shed any tears if the family of a dead ex-smoker squeezes a hundred million out of Phillip Morris in a bogus lawsuit.